I Heard The Bells On Christmas Day
by arainymonday
Summary: During December 1997, the adults in her life help Cassie cope with the loss of her parents and home each in their own way. In turn she gives back something they each long to have: a child, a family, a childhood, a sense of belonging.
1. Snow Creams

**DISCLAIMER:** None of these characters belong to me. I'm just playing in the Stargate sandbox.  
><strong>TIMELINE:<strong> December 1997 - Season 1, after "Singularity"  
><strong>SPOILERS: <strong>"Singularity"  
><strong>ESTABLISHED SHIPS:<strong> None

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:** I wrote this story in November 2010 during NaNoWriMo. I've let it sit for a whole year because I didn't have time to edit it then, and I felt strongly about posting one chapter a day during the whole month of December. So that is what I'll be doing this year. Make sure to story alert so you get the shiny e-mail every day as I post!

Thank you for reading. Please review, if you are so compelled.

-Heather

* * *

><p><strong>I HEARD THE BELLS ON CHRISTMAS DAY<strong>

"Christmas Bells"

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I heard the bells on Christmas Day  
>Their old, familiar carols play,<br>And wild and sweet  
>The words repeat<br>Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And thought how, as the day had come,  
>The belfries of all Christendom<br>Had rolled along  
>The unbroken song<br>Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Till ringing, singing on its way,  
>The world revolved from night to day,<br>A voice, a chime,  
>A chant sublime<br>Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

Then from each black, accursed mouth  
>The cannon thundered in the South,<br>And with the sound  
>The carols drowned<br>Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

It was as if an earthquake rent  
>The hearth-stones of a continent,<br>And made forlorn  
>The households born<br>Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

And in despair I bowed my head;  
>"There is no peace on earth," I said;<br>"For hate is strong,  
>And mocks the song<br>Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:  
>"God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;<br>The Wrong shall fail,  
>The Right prevail,<br>With peace on earth, good-will to men."

* * *

><p><strong>DECEMBER 1<strong>

"**Snow Creams"**

Snow floated from the steely sky onto the girl's upturned face. A fine layer of icy frosting coated long wavy blonde hair peeking out from a pink knit cap and clung to thick curling eyelashes. The mail retrieved from the box at the end of the lane hung loosely in one gloved hand. She had stood like this with her face turned skyward and bearing a beatific smile for nearly ten minutes when the snap and flash of a camera startled her.

With bewilderment in her brown eyes, she turned towards the snow-covered house with the bright red door. A petite woman stood in the doorway, her feet wrapped in warm knit boots and her short auburn hair covered with a matching cap. A brilliant smile to match the girl's shone on her face. She came out from the protection of the porch awning and down the freshly shoveled steps.

"What is it?" Cassandra asked, peering up again at the fluffy flakes falling from the cold, gray sky.

"It's called snow. We get a lot of it in Colorado between November and March," Janet replied. "When the upper atmosphere gets cold, water vapor turns to snow and falls to Earth. Sam could explain it to you better. You can ask her about it when she comes over today."

Cassandra beamed. "Okay, I will! When is she getting here?"

"In just a little bit. You should come inside and get warm so you're ready for a surprise when she gets here. I promise it will be worth it."

Inside the ranch-style house, Janet helped her twelve-year-old foster daughter out of the bulky pink winter coat and hung her cap, scarf, and gloves to dry over the register. The boots would take all night, she lamented, since Cassandra had jumped into every snow drift between the front steps and the mailbox. She didn't blame the girl for enjoying the first snow of the year. From the sound of it, she had never even seen snow before.

Very few people in the world had high enough security clearance to know that aliens called Goa'uld had transported human civilizations from Earth to other planets in the Milky Way galaxy thousands of years ago. Cassandra came from one of those human worlds and had been living on Earth for a little over two months.

As a doctor in Stargate Command, Janet had the clearance to know all of this. Her job also gave her the distinct privilege of becoming Cassandra's foster parent. She had known from the first when her commanding officer, General George Hammond, asked for volunteers with proper security clearance to take in the orphan girl that it was the right decision. It wasn't easy, being a single parent and first time parent to a twelve-year-old girl, but it was rewarding in ways Janet had never imagined.

"Why don't you go finish up your homework so you have all afternoon to spend with Sam?"

Cassandra agreed. She got her backpack from her bedroom at the back of the house and went to sit at the kitchen table. Her history book appeared in front of her first. It was her favorite class, partly because Earth history was completely new to her and partly because Daniel made history come to life with his many stories.

Along with Captain Samantha Carter, Dr. Daniel Jackson was part of SG-1, the frontline Stargate exploration team. He was an archeologist and philologist who had translated the language on the Stargate and made it work. Also, he had been an orphan raised in foster care and had taken a special interest in Cassandra. It made Janet's heart melt to watch them together, chatting about history and language and myth. Another member of SG-1 to show keen interest in the girl was Colonel Jack O'Neill, who had lost his son in a tragic accident a little over two years ago. Janet had never asked, but she thought Charlie O'Neill would be about twelve years old now.

The final team member, Teal'c, had kept his distance from Cassandra for several weeks. He was a Jaffa, a soldier enslaved by the Goa'uld, and unsure if the girl wanted him around. He told Janet if Cassandra had seen Nirrti's Jaffa on her home world, she would not find it easy to accept him as she did Janet, Sam, Daniel, and Jack. Cassandra, however, showed no signs of fearing or disliking Teal'c. She remembered only that he had rescued her on Hanka.

"Janet?" Cassandra called. "Was General Robert E. Lee in the Air Force?"

"Have you looked in the encyclopedia?" Janet called back. She paused over the grilled cheese simmering in the frying pan and heard Cassandra's stocking-clad feet scampering into the living room to pull the L volume from the shelf. A few minutes later she asked, "What did you find, Cassie?"

"He was in the Confederate Army. Why didn't he join the Air Force?"

"Air Force starts with A."

Cassandra's precociousness meant doing her homework took three or four times as long as it should. Whenever she stumbled on something she didn't know, she wanted to learn about it. Janet didn't mind in the slightest. In fact, she encouraged the girl's inquisitiveness by purchasing a full encyclopedia set and finally connecting her home computer to the Internet. Weekly trips to the library and weekend excursions to every museum within driving distance had become their favorite times together. It was good the girl had such a voracious appetite for knowledge or assimilating into Earth society would have been even more difficult for her.

With the grilled cheese and a bowl of piping hot chicken noodle soup ready, Janet came to see how her foster daughter had progressed on figuring out why a Civil War General had not joined the Air Force. She set the food down on the table and peered into the living room where Cassandra lay on the floor, her feet in the air, devouring the history of the United States Air Force.

"You must be hungry, Cassie."

The girl marked her place with her finger and looked up curiously. "I didn't notice it was lunchtime. But I figured out why he didn't join the Air Force. There wasn't an Air Force in the 1850's because airplanes weren't invented until the 1900's."

"That's right. Now come and eat."

Cassandra obliged her foster mother and came to the table for lunch. She never stopped sharing the pieces of information she had gleaned from the encyclopedia, but Janet let her talk, never letting on that she had learned most of the same information in her first year in the Air Force Academy.

Cassandra's dog raced out of the laundry room where he'd been gnawing on a milkbone to urge his owner to give him table scraps. When the girl had arrived on Janet's doorstep with an Akita puppy Jack had talked Cassandra into naming Homer, she had been more than happy to have them both. Then she had done some research on her foster daughter's pet and would have throttled Jack if doing so wouldn't have earned her a court marital for assaulting a superior officer. Growing to nearly two-and-a-half-feet, Akitas could weigh up to 130 pounds. Already the puppy ate his weight in kibble weekly.

After lunch, the girl went back to her homework and managed to finish her essay on the Civil War with minimal interruptions. Next came her language arts and then her science lessons. Janet said nothing about the mysteriously absent math books. Everyone struggled with some subject, and it would be more productive to let the math wizard – Sam – coax Cassandra into bringing out the pre-algebra books and worksheets.

By the time Sam's car pulled into the snowy driveway and left deep ruts at the end of the lane, Cassandra had finished most of her school work and occupied a seat on the window bench. Through the frosted glass, she watched the car doors open. Not only had Sam come, but she'd brought Daniel. Cassandra leapt up from her place by the window and bolted to the door. Hot on her heels, Homer bellowed his welcome as barks that echoed around the small house while Sam and Daniel came in out of the cold.

"Sam! Daniel!"

The girl threw her arms around the adults' torsos and squeezed for all she was worth. The force of impact knocked Daniel's round glasses askew, and Sam was forced to practically hogtie Homer to get him to stop leaping enthusiastically into the air.

"My home is certainly never boring anymore," Janet said. She greeted each of her friends with a hug and invited them to come in and make themselves comfortable. "Coffee?"

"Oh, yes," said Daniel, predictably. He was the reason Janet had invested in a coffeemaker in the first place. She couldn't stand the bitter drink, but once she started to entertain friends at her house, she'd quickly learned she was the odd one out.

When Janet returned to the living room, she found Cassandra settled on the couch between Sam and Daniel. The girl's head whipped back and forth as the adults took turns talking about their day at the SGC. All had been quiet or Janet would have gotten a page. The scene reminded her of when Sam and Daniel had brought Cassandra through the Stargate, each holding her hand so she wouldn't be scared.

"So what's the surprise?" Cassandra asked. "Janet said I would have to be warm when you came over because … well, she didn't say why after that."

"Ah, that. Boy, it is going to be fun!" Sam looked as excited as Cassandra. "Daniel, why don't you go ahead? It was your idea."

The archaeologist grinned in his usual sincere manner and began. "Janet, Sam, and I were talking a few days ago about all the holiday traditions on Earth and how you don't know any because this is your first year here. I know how confusing it was for me when I lived on Abydos, but I had good friends to teach me their customers. So we thought that we – the three of us and Jack and Teal'c – could teach you our ways, one a day, for the whole month of December."

The idea was so typically Daniel, always wanting to explore cultures and find commonalities, but it also suited Cassandra's personality perfectly. Since the first day she had left the SGC, she had shown keen interest in everything new, from swing sets to dog leashes to Halloween costumes. Her face lit up with pure joy.

"Really?" She sounded so pleased the adults broke into low laughter, all nodding. After all she had been through, she deserved happiness. "That would be so … _cool_." Jack had taught her an assortment of Earth slang soon after foisting the soon-to-be enormous puppy on her. Half the time Cassandra sounded just like the colonel, using all of his favorite phrases – especially "for crying out loud!" – and even mimicking his expressions to match them.

"Since it's December first," Sam said, "we thought we'd get started today. That's part of the surprise." The Captain motioned to a grocery sack on the trestle table by the door. She had brought it in unnoticed thanks to Homer's hyperactivity.

"But what about Jack and Teal'c? Shouldn't we wait for them?"

"We can't all be here every day this month, Cassie," Janet said kindly. "You know General Hammond needs us on base, and SG-1 will still have to go off world a couple times a week. But at least one of us will be here every day to show you a new tradition."

"Oh, okay. As long as no one will get their feelings hurt."

The adults couldn't suppress their proud grins. Cassandra's parents, whoever they were, had raised her well. Not once since she had come to live with Janet had the girl been rude or willful. General Hammond, with a grown child of his own, had warned Janet that stage wouldn't last forever and to enjoy it while she could because rough times were coming. Naturally, Cassandra was prone to sullen moods when memories overcame her, and Janet did her best at those times. Daniel helped a lot, and Sam had lost her mother young too.

"There's an Earth tradition, or at least a Carter family tradition, that after the first snow in December, you have to make a Snow Cream. That's what's in the bag." Sam retrieved the paper bag and headed for the kitchen. "Come on, slow poke! Or don't you want to learn something new?"

The teasing question had Cassandra up off the couch in a flash. Out in the kitchen, Sam arranged the ingredients along the countertop while Cassandra craned her neck to watch the sugar, flour, eggs, milk, and vanilla appear from the grocery sack.

"Ready?" Janet handed around four measuring cups and four sets of measuring spoons Sam had warned her they would need. "A fourth of a cup of sugar."

Cassandra poured out her ingredients first with intense concentration. Earth measurements were brand new to her, but with some help, she managed to get almost everything on the first try. At last, they had four bowls of Snow Cream base.

"And now for the fun part … we go collect the snow!" Sam announced.

Janet did a double take. "Excuse me? Sam, I'm a doctor, and I know what kinds of atmospheric toxins end up in snow. I can't let a child eat it."

"What did you think was in Snow Creams, Janet?" Sam asked, a laugh in her voice.

"Crushed ice. Like a Snow Cone."

Cassandra watched the exchange curiously. "But, Janet, I already ate some snow when it was falling outside. I caught it on my tongue."

With a triumphant "Ha!" Sam took the girl's arm and led her into the living room to wrap up in her heavy coat, gloves, scarf, and boots. Daniel offered Janet a shrug, as if to apologize, but only halfway because he joined Sam and Cassandra at the door with four bowls for collecting snow. Giving up the fight, Janet pulled on her own coat.

"Come on, Homer. You'd better go out with the rest of us."

The tan and black dog bolted through the front door when it was hardly opened a crack and bounded into the largest snow drift with a woof. In fifteen second flat, he was caked in a layer of snow and giving Janet nightmares of a winter full of wet dog smell all over her house.

"We each need about this much snow." Sam held up her hands to indicate the size of a basketball. "Make sure it's clean snow and nowhere Homer has been."

The hunt for a clean patch of snow deep enough for everyone began. From Cassandra's gleeful skipping through the snow, it was clear she was less concerned with finding snow to eat and more with playing. She and Homer rolled around the yard together, laughing and barking. Daniel found a place where the snow had blown high between the house and an evergreen tree. Sam demonstrated how to brush off the top layer and plunge the bowl into the drift, but not to the ground.

Going back inside was more of an ordeal than going out. For one, Homer started shaking off his coat immediately and flicked chunks of snow as far as onto the kitchen tile, which became downright dangerous when wet. Also, Cassandra was soaked to the skin, and Janet made her go change her clothes before they could finish making Snow Creams.

"I'm changed! I'm changed!" the girl yelled, thundering down the hallway and skidding across the kitchen in her socks. She had opted to wear another pair of blue jeans and a long sleeve USAF shirt. "We can finish making the Snow Creams now."

"Pour the mixture into the snow carefully, like this."

Following Sam's example, the Snow Creams were completed and they retreated into the living room to enjoy the ultra sugary treat Janet normally would have never allowed into her house. She had a feeling that would happen a lot during this holiday season.

Cassandra bit into her Snow Cream and let it melt in her mouth with a pensive expression. After a second bite, she declared, "I like this tradition!" It wasn't quite as emphatic as the first time she'd tasted ice cream, but much better than her reaction to peanut butter.

Daniel held up his bowl in a mock toast, a gesture that Cassandra had learned from the television. She followed suit, as did Sam and Janet.

"Here's to thirty more excellent traditions."


	2. Decorations

**DECEMBER 2**

"**Decorations"**

The snow from the previous day had stopped falling by midmorning, but a layer of glittering white covered Colorado Springs. The mountains along the horizon visible from the back porch of the house flared red and orange with the climbing sun. The temperature had plummeted overnight freezing the top of the snow into a hard crust that Cassandra and Homer crunched through with giddy delight all morning.

The oversized green truck pulled into the driveway around ten o'clock and announced itself with a loud grumbling engine. The girl and dog perked and whipped their heads with such similar expressions of happy curiosity Janet couldn't help but laugh aloud from her dry spot on the covered porch.

"Jack!" Cassandra cried, and Homer woofed. They took off at a sprint around the house and careened into Colonel Jack O'Neill. "Janet didn't tell me you were coming!"

From around the other side of the truck came Teal'c. He observed the furious hug Cassandra gave Jack and the way Homer licked the colonel's face with happy abandon and decided to keep his distance. He bowed his head formally to Cassandra, and she mimicked the gesture.

"Hello, Teal'c. Nice cap. Did General Hammond give you special permission to leave the base today?"

The Jaffa wore a maroon and white knit earflap hat like the snowboarders who came through town on their way to Arapahoe Basin to hide the gold tattoo of the symbol of Apophis – the false god that had enslaved his world and forced the Jaffa to kill in his name – on his forehead. Teal'c had been on Earth longer than Cassandra, but since he had been an enemy soldier when he denounced Apophis, not everyone in the government trusted him.

"Indeed he did." Like at all times, Teal'c was succinct and spoke only when he had something important to say. "O'Neill is here to teach you another of this world's holiday traditions, and he suggested I may enjoy it as well, though he did not share what activity we would be engaging in."

Janet joined them in the driveway with the garage door clicker in hand. She pushed the button and motioned to four boxes stacked on the floor next to her car.

"Decorations!" Jack announced.

A brief rummage through the boxes produced all the requisite Christmas decorations: icicle lights, large star, light strings, wreaths, and Santa's workshop figurines. Janet had also left by the boxes a ladder and staple gun. While Teal'c and Cassandra peered curiously at the items, wondering how any of this could be turned into decoration, Jack nodded with approval.

"Pretty good stuff you've got here, Doc. We'll have it up in no time. Just you go inside and do whatever you do when you're not at the SGC saving our lives."

Janet retreated into the house shaking her head at the Colonel's quirky humor. Left to his own devices, Jack rubbed his gloved hands together with glee. He glanced at the bed of his truck and all the additional decorations he'd picked up on his way over. Janet had a nice, traditional spread here, but Cassandra needed a really festive yard to get her into the holiday spirit.

It had been several years since Jack had decorated for Christmas. He couldn't bring himself to go through the boxes of memories and stumble on the Popsicle stick ornaments Charlie had brought home from school. The loss of his son had sapped away all desire to celebrate any holiday, and he thought he never would want to again. Then Daniel had shared his idea.

"We'll start with this stuff first. Teal'c, you wanna get the ladder?"

Cassandra had very little to do for the first hour and a half since that involved hanging icicle lights along the house eaves. Jack went up on the ladder, and Teal'c fed him the lights while holding the ladder steady. The girl chattered while he worked.

"Did you know there wasn't an Air Force during the Civil War?"

Jack made a sound that meant he'd almost fallen off the ladder again, but Teal'c addressed the girl seriously. "I did not, Cassandra. What is this Civil War you speak of?"

For the next half hour, while Jack connected the lights to the electrical supply, Cassandra narrated the events of the Civil War in the benign way seventh grade textbooks taught it. The Jaffa asked few questions, but said in a carrying voice to Jack that he approved of engaging in battle to end slavery.

With the lights around the house, Jack hung the large six-pointed star on the chimney and then brought out the multicolored light strings.

"Where else can we put lights?" Cassandra asked. "There are already lights everywhere!"

"Around the hedge, of course. Oh, right, putting up the Christmas tree is tomorrow's tradition. Well, trust me, if it's green in winter, lights belong on it."

The girl shrugged and took a package of lights. With Teal'c's help at the top of the miniature evergreens, she began to wend the string around the hedges. The first time, she got the lights so tangled it took all three of them fifteen minutes to untangle the mess of lights. The second time, she wrapped the lights so tightly they coiled around the trunk and were completely hidden by the nettles. But on the third try, with Jack's guidance, she produced a reasonably well decorated evergreen shrub.

The last item of Janet's was the set of plastic figurines of elves and reindeer in Santa's workshop. Cassandra turned over the figures in her hands, frowning at the green-coated, pointy-eared elf.

"Is it an animal? Or an alien species?" she inquired. "And who is that guy in the red coat? Why is he so much taller than these ones?"

Jack hesitated, but decided that at twelve, if Cassandra claimed to still believe in Santa Claus, she would be ridiculed by her classmates who knew better. He picked up the Santa figure and observed the rosy cheeks and half-moon spectacles for a minute.

"This is Santa Claus. Kids on Earth believe that he flies around in his sleigh on Christmas Eve and delivers presents to all the good little boys and girls. Those are his helpers, elves, that make all the toys. And those are reindeer. They pull his sleigh. The whole thing is based on some old myth Daniel could tell you all about."

Cassandra processed all of this with a furrowed brow and stayed silent for a long time. "So … Santa Claus is a Goa'uld?"

"_What?_ Santa Claus is not a Goa'uld!"

Teal'c agreed fervently with Cassandra. "This Santa Claus is a false god whom the young of this world still believe in. He forces his slaves to produce his toys and flies around the world in a ship pulled by creatures with no wings that he wants children to believe are magical. He sounds very much to me like a Goa'uld."

Jack's mouth worked silently. "Well, when you put it that way …" He was going to have to speak to Daniel about this. The archaeologist would have some insight into the origin of the myth and maybe whether or not there had ever been a Goa'uld called Santa Claus.

"I don't want to put up decorations for a Goa'uld," Cassandra said. "I hope Janet doesn't mind."

"I am sure Dr. Fraiser will agree, once you and I have explained to her that Santa Claus seeks to enslave the children of this world with false beliefs," the Jaffa assured her.

Jack grinned mischievously. He couldn't wait to see the look on the Janet's face – and Carter's and Daniel's – when they had that conversation. In fact, it would probably make his week.

"We're only half done. There's more stuff in the bed of my truck."

Cassandra climbed onto the truck fender and stared down at the mass of yard decorations in the bed with wide eyes. When Jack and Teal'c started to pull out lawn ornaments, she eagerly trotted after them and helped direct their decoration efforts. Homer ambled around the ornaments, wagging his tail at the newly placed decorations and pouncing playfully on them.

When Janet came out of the front door an hour later to announce she had lunch ready, if they were hungry, she stopped short. Her eyes grew to the size of saucers, and then narrowed into angry slits. Mouth pressed into a thin line, she marched through the yard and directly up to Jack.

"Sir! When I said you could decorate my yard, I meant decorate, not build a theme park!"

For a woman barely reaching 5'1", Janet Fraiser had the presence of a linebacker when she was irritated. Jack towered over the petite woman, and out ranked her to boot, but he still felt sufficiently chided. He turned to survey the yard, doing his best impression of nonchalance.

Large ornaments crowded in on each other. The five foot long Santa and reindeers had been nixed, but there were still plenty of other three foot tall light displays: snowmen, candy canes, candles, spinning tops, and gifts tied in ribbon. The yard declared no less than three holiday platitudes. "Peace on Earth" Cassandra and Teal'c had placed prominently at the front of the yard. The giant inflatable snowman in front of the living room window spread out his arms in welcoming gesture and swayed in the cold wind blowing down from the mountains.

"What's wrong with it? It's … festive."

"Is that a dinosaur?" Janet demanded, pointing to a Tyrannosaurus Rex outlined in flashing orange lights. Jack couldn't really justify that one, so he didn't try. "_Sir!_"

"Janet," he said, holding up one hand to stop her from going on. For Jack, it was a kind of direct order his officers had become accustomed to, but she looked close to disobeying. "It's for Cassie, not for us. Look at her, and then if you still want me to take it all down, I will."

Janet felt her anger dissolve as she watched Cassandra loping through the yard with a joyful smile on her lips. The tacky, crowded, and poorly placed figures mattered less than the girl's happiness. She sighed.

"All right, sir. They can stay. But you are taking them all down and storing them at your house all year. And no promises that they're going up again next year."

"Deal."

Janet didn't realize until she'd said it that she planned on Cassandra still living with her next Christmas. By all accounts, this arrangement was temporary until a family with proper security clearance could adopt the girl. In just two months, however, Cassandra had become such an important part of her life, it had stopped feeling temporary to Janet.

"Cassie, it's time to go inside before you catch a cold."

The girl made half-hearted protests to her foster mother as Janet ushered her inside. Jack and Teal'c followed, discussing their favorite of the gaudy lawn ornaments. The doctor glanced over her shoulder, wondering how anyone could have a favorite, and saw several of her neighbors across the street staring in wide-eyed horror. She offered them a friendly wave, but they were too distracted by the dinosaur to see.


	3. Christmas Tree

**DECEMBER 3**

"**Christmas Tree"**

Cassandra bounced down the steps of the yellow school bus as it pulled up in front of Cheyenne Mountain High School. A stream of students rushed to their lockers chatting about their weekend activities, Cassandra among them.

She had left the house in good spirits for a Monday morning. Cassandra loved going to school, but not early mornings. Over a breakfast of eggs and toast, Janet had promised to pick her up from school for their daily holiday tradition. It was something Janet referred to as "The Tree." So far, the Earth traditions had all been fun, and she loved getting to spend more time with SG-1 who were always so busy saving all the worlds in the galaxy.

"Hi, Cassie!" Tessa Hammond called.

Cassandra looked up to see her friend jogging down the corridor, light blonde ponytail swinging behind her. The younger girl didn't belong in the seventh graders' corridor, but she came over to Cassandra's locker everyday anyway. Tessa was General George Hammond's oldest granddaughter, and the first friend Cassandra had made on Earth. Soon after her arrival, General Hammond had hosted a barbeque. Cassandra had gone with her foster mother and hit it off instantly with Tessa. The girls had been practically inseparable since.

"Hey, Tessa. Guess what? Janet, Sam, Daniel, and Jack are going to teach me all about holiday traditions on – er, I mean, in America. We're doing one a day all month." She omitted Teal'c only because she wasn't sure if she was allowed to talk about the alien Jaffa.

The other girl's green eyes widened, and she swelled with inspiration. "Oh, please let me help, Cass. I know some fun things to do too."

"Yeah, okay! That would be fun. Everyone has different holiday traditions, don't they? Janet doesn't really like Jack's or Sam's."

Cassandra dumped her bag in the bottom of her locker and pulled out her language arts book. With her Trapper Keeper and pencil case in her arms too, she shut the locker and started down the hallway with Tessa.

"Yeah, I guess so. I'll think of some really fun things. Promise."

With that decided, the girls turned to more important matters, like the new barrette in Tessa's hair and a new boy in the eighth grade they both thought was really cute. They parted ways at the junction of the sixth and seventh grade wings.

Cassandra made her way into Mrs. Sommers' classroom and took her seat with the small group of friends she had made in the past two months. Dominic was talking about snowboarding at Keystone with his brothers while Sharon and Elaine gossiped about who they thought would audition for the winter play.

Mrs. Sommers called the class to order and started the lecture about helping verbs before Cassandra could tell her friends about learning holiday traditions. The rest of the day was pretty much the same: consumed by lessons. During lunch, she met up with Tessa, who had not been paying attention in science so she could come up with a list of important Christmas traditions they could do together that adults probably wouldn't think of doing. After lunch, Cassandra's thoughts drifted away during math class, but history caught her attention and held it to the end of the day.

When the final bell rang, Cassandra ran to her locker and shoved all the books she would need for homework into her book bag. As promised, Janet's car idled in the parking lot next to the school. Cassandra ran across the slippery sidewalk down the line of buses to the car. Getting picked up was a rare treat for her. She climbed into the backseat, breathless from the cold.

"Teal'c!" she exclaimed, surprised to see the Jaffa.

"Hello, Cassandra. Did you have a productive day at school?"

"Yes, I did, and a fun day too. What are we doing today?"

"Something very special Teal'c has agreed to help with … The Tree," Janet said cryptically.

"I admit, I am curious about this custom," Teal'c explained.

The doctor put the car into drive and pulled away from the school. They drove through Colorado Springs to a parking lot normally abandoned the rest of the year, but full of rows of evergreen trees now. Clusters of families meandered through the trees inspecting and selecting their favorites.

"We're picking out a Christmas tree," Janet announced, with a big smile.

She led the way into the trees, and the scent of pine and sap and fresh snow enveloped them fully. The sky had opened to release flurries, and Cassandra caught the flakes on her tongue as they walked down the aisles. She skipped through the fresh powder, kicking up clouds and dusting her boots. After searching for a quarter of an hour, she found the perfect tree.

"What about that one?" Cassandra pointed at an evergreen tree that made Charlie Brown's Christmas tree look lush and healthy. The scraggly branches hung limp and the nettles curled dry and brown.

"That tree?"

The girl nodded. "No one is looking at it. They don't want it, and I feel bad for it."

Janet wanted no such tree in her house, but she agreed to it immediately when she heard Cassandra's reason for wanting it. She knew the orphaned girl had to be feeling something like that about herself.

"Well, Teal'c, I guess we didn't need your muscles after all. Still, while we have you …"

Teal'c picked up the scruffy tree easily and carried it to the car while Janet paid a pittance for it. With the tree strapped to the roof of the car, they drove back to the Air Force Base and Janet's house.

The minute Cassandra opened the door, Homer bolted outside to relieve himself after a whole day cooped up inside. Teal'c brought in the tree, and Janet instructed him how to secure it into the tree stand. She sent Cassandra to get water.

"Now, for the fun part."

Janet carried out from the hall closet a box labeled CHRISTMAS TREE in her own bold handwriting. Expecting more like the lawn ornaments, Cassandra was surprised to find instead fluffy red and green tinsel and boxes of spun glass balls.

"Umm, Janet? Did you get the wrong box?"

"No, silly. These are ornaments for the tree."

She took out the tinsel and showed her alien helpers how to wrap it around the tree. It was similar to the lights around the hedge outside and they picked it up quickly. The tree was so pathetically small, however, and the tinsel so voluminous, the result was that the tree looked wrapped from top to trunk in a fuzzy tinsel sweater. Next, Janet took out a package of hooks and threaded them through the eyes at the top of the delicate glass bulbs.

"Anywhere you want on the tree, Cassie."

The girl took the bulbs from Janet one at a time and arranged them on the tinsel-covered branches. Teal'c helped place a couple as well. When the tree was loaded with as many ornaments as its frail, tinsel-coated branches could support, Janet produced a beautiful gold and silver star tree topper. Cassandra could easily reach the top of the stubby tree by herself. With some encouragement from Janet, she placed the final touch on their Christmas tree.

There was one final surprise for the day. Janet gave Cassandra a white box tied with green ribbon. "This is a very special ornament. It's brand new this year, just for you."

Cassandra pulled the end of the ribbon and lifted the top off the box. Inside was a snow globe with windmills encased inside the glass. Along the base was printed Cassandra's name. The girl shook the globe and watched the glittery snow fall onto the clay windmills.

"They're just like the ones on Hanka," she whispered.

The girl's eyes misted over as she shook the globe again and watched the snow settle. A moment later, she launched herself at Janet and hugged her foster mother with all her strength.

"It's all right, Cassie. It's all right," Janet crooned.

"Indeed, Cassandra. It is all right now." Teal'c touched the girl's shoulder in a gesture of comfort.

A few minutes later, after Cassandra had calmed down some, Janet suggested, "Why don't we put the snow globe on the tree?" Cassandra agreed and hung the globe near the top of the tree just under the star.

They sat down to a dinner of pot roast and mashed potatoes, and then Janet drove Teal'c back to the Cheyenne Mountain complex. While she was gone, Cassandra snuck in half an hour of television before starting her homework. She hadn't watched too much TV since coming to Earth because Janet said it would "rot her brain" – which she later clarified was a metaphor because Cassandra had been genuinely fearful of the television set – but she did like _The Simpsons_ because it was Jack's favorite show, and her dog was named after Homer Simpson.

When Janet returned home, she noticed the snow globe had been removed from the tree. Curious, and a little worried, she went to check on her foster daughter to make sure the girl was all right. Cassandra lay on her bed with her reading homework spread over the comforter. The snow globe held a place of honor on her bedside table.


	4. Snow Angels

**DECEMBER 4**

"**Snow Angels"**

Jack was late coming over on Tuesday night. The further away the clock hands moved from five o'clock, the more Cassandra started to worry. Daylight had already started to recede as the sun sank behind the western mountains, and Janet turned on the living room lights to better read her book. Cassandra sat at the kitchen table half-heartedly doing pre-algebra equations and worrying that Jack would miss their Christmas tradition completely.

Every few minutes Janet glanced up from _Martin Dressler_ to check the time and how Cassandra was doing. Having worked in the SGC for a year, she understood that a team's arrival from off world could be delayed by any number of unexpected circumstances, some dangerous and others benign. If the return trip through the Stargate had gone as planned, then the medical screening or debriefing with General Hammond could take extra long.

She had debated even agreeing to let Jack do this tradition so close to returning from a mission. Partly that was because SG-1 ran into so much trouble off world, and partly because she didn't want Cassandra to be disappointed if he couldn't make it. Missing events for duty's sake was part of serving in the Air Force, but Cassandra didn't understand that concept yet.

At seven o'clock, Janet decided they could wait no longer for Jack. Something had clearly gone wrong on their mission, and she could only hope it was nothing life-threatening. She would find out for sure at 0430 when she reported for duty. The sun had fully gone down leaving the backyard clouded in dim blue light, but the front yard burst with color from a dozen flashing lawn ornaments.

"All right," Janet said suddenly. "Time for another holiday tradition. Let's get on your winter gear, Cassie."

The girl dropped her pencil onto her homework. "But Jack isn't here. He said he's the best at making snowmen, and then he ordered everyone not to even try and teach me without him."

"I know, and he'll still be able to teach you, but another time. Tonight, we're going to do my favorite holiday tradition, just you and me."

Cassandra looked morose and disappointed. Janet took a seat next to her foster daughter and placed a comforting hand on the girl's head. In time, probably every adult in her life would fail to show up at least once. They all worked for the Air Force, and their lives were not entirely their own because of it.

"I know you were looking forward to spending time with Colonel O'Neill, and I know he wanted to build snowmen with you too. Sometimes, though, the Air Force needs us to stay in Cheyenne Mountain or stay off world. We signed up to serve and defend, and that means we have to go wherever and whenever we're needed."

The girl nodded and put on a brave face. "I know. You probably had to stay at work to take care of me when I was sick. I'm just worried. What if they're hurt or … or …"

Janet was glad Cassandra stared resolutely down at the hands in her lap or the flash of alarm over her face would have only confirmed the girl's suspicions that everyone she cared about put themselves in harm's way every day. But as for how to explain the situation to a child who had just lost her parents and everyone she had ever known to a bacterial plague, Janet felt at a total loss.

"Colonels and Captains are very good at what they do, and Teal'c was a First Prime. Even though he's a civilian, Daniel is very good too. They're careful off world, and they look out for each other. If they do encounter the Goa'uld, they're all very good fighters. They _are_ the best Earth has, after all."

If Cassandra was not convinced, she betrayed nothing. Janet had a sinking feeling in her gut that she had horribly mishandled the question. It had snuck up on her, and she hadn't been able to think well enough on her feet. But what could she have said better when she had the same fears as Cassandra?

"So, winter clothes. We're going outside to play in the snow again?"

"That's right," Janet said. "We'll leave snowmen up to Colonel O'Neill. Tonight, we're making snow angels."

Cassandra pulled on her coat, gloves, and hat like Janet always made her do when she went outside to play in the snow. Since the sun had gone down and the temperature had dropped even lower, she also insisted the girl wear a sweater, scarf, and two pairs of socks with her boots. Homer ambled around the door, eager to bound outside and play with Jack's decorations.

"I feel like that marshmallow guy on the commercials, for crying out loud," the girl complained.

"The Michelin man?" Janet guessed. "You'll thank me for the extra layers once you see how snow angels are made."

The extra layers of clothes kept the freezing temperature outside at bay for awhile. With their breaths turning to thick mist, Janet and Cassandra hunted in the yard for a wide enough space to make their snow angels. Jack had crammed the decorations so closely together, they had to go almost around the side of the house.

"So what now?" the girl wondered.

Janet demonstrated to peals of laughter from Cassandra at seeing her foster mother lying on the ground swishing her arms and legs through the powdery snow. Giggling still, she lay down herself and worked her arms and legs through the snow. Homer flung himself into a drift and rolled back and forth in canine imitation of his owners.

"See? It is fun!" Cassandra agreed with the woman by laughing happily. "I used to do this with my mom when I was your age. We were never very good at snowmen or snowball fights, but we made snow angels all over the yard."

With the snow around her arms and legs pushed as far away as she could manage, Cassandra paused and stared up at the black sky dotted with stars. The faint orange glow of city lights cast a kind of filter over the night sky that comforted her; it meant people were all around.

"Janet? Do you know which one of those stars is Hanka?"

"I'm sorry, Cassie, but I don't know. Colonel O'Neill or Sam might be able to tell you, but I'm afraid I'm no good at astronomy."

Lying beside Janet, Cassandra nodded her head against the snowy ground. "I wish they taught us astronomy in school, but my teacher said we don't talk about the stars until ninth grade, and then it's only a few lessons in physics classes."

"Well, now we know what to get you for Christmas."

"What do you mean?" the girl inquired innocently.

Janet marveled that a holiday meaning so much to millions of people on Earth held no significance whatsoever for the billions of humans and aliens on other worlds in the galaxy. If they celebrated a winter holiday at all, it was some vestige of their earlier culture on Earth or as foreign a concept to her as Christmas to Cassandra.

"Christmas is a holiday where friends and family exchange presents. We make lists of what we want, and then on Christmas morning families open their presents together. Sam has already decided this Saturday is when she's going to teach you all about Christmas shopping."

"Jack told me about Santa Claus. I thought only the kids got presents. Can I buy presents for all of my friends, even the adults?"

The colonel had mentioned to Janet the conversation about Santa Claus being a Goa'uld. Her reaction had been something akin to a stifled scream, and he had reminded her that he was a colonel and she was a captain. She decided not to broach the Santa Claus subject for now since Cassandra wasn't likely to see it any other way until she learned more about Earth customs.

"Yes, you can get presents for everyone. Not everyone buys presents from a store, though. Some people make gifts for their loved ones if they're good at something like art."

The girl smiled up at the twinkling stars. "Like me."

A few moments of silence lapsed in the conversation, and Janet wondered if Cassandra was cold enough to want to go inside. Her own nose and cheeks felt red with cold, and she wouldn't mind curling up under a warm blanket with a mug of coffee.

"Janet? What's an angel?"

The doctor cringed at her own assumption again. Of course, Cassandra had been raised to believe Nirrti, the Hindu goddess of death and destruction, was the supreme deity. They had no concept of angels, and Janet could hardly explain about angels from Earth without the girl leaping to the wrong conclusion, like she had done about Santa Claus.

"Angels are messengers and guardians," she said simply. "They wear all white robes, and if you stand up very carefully now, you'll see their shapes in the snow."

Cassandra climbed out of her snow angel without stepping on the outline and peered down at the packed snow. Janet joined her a moment later and wrapped an arm around Cassandra's shoulder to pull her close. In the snow, two angels with nearly touching hands peered heavenward.


	5. Snowman

**DECEMBER 5**

"**Snowman"**

Overnight, blistering cold winds swept through Colorado Springs and sent snow blowing into drifts five feet or higher. The crush of wheels on packed snow turned the roads into dangerous ice sheets. Janet woke Cassandra at four in the morning to say Dr. Warner had called her into work early. The girl barely registered any of it, rolled over, and went back to sleep.

When the alarm roused Cassandra at six o'clock, she found a note in Janet's handwriting taped to the bathroom mirror. _Dr. Warner called me in to work early. Listen to the radio to find out if school is cancelled. I'll call if I can._ Yawning, the girl padded into the living room and flicked on the radio tuned perpetually to the station that gave the most regular school delay and cancellation announcements. She had just nodded off in the armchair when the radio announcer read off a list of delays, and among them Cheyenne Mountain High School.

Twenty minutes later, she had a bowl of oatmeal in her lap and _Clueless_ rerun playing on the television. It was no use going back to bed. Hearing that she could sleep two more hours if she wanted to made it impossible to fall back asleep. She was contemplating calling Tessa to see if her friend wanted to meet and play in the snow when the familiar rumble of an engine pulling into the driveway drew her attention to the window.

Cassandra wrenched the front door open and flung herself outside to meet Jack as he climbed down from his truck. She careened down the stairs and onto the sidewalk before she registered that she had left the house without her jacket and only in her socks. She skidded on a patch of ice and nearly went down on her behind before Jack caught her, but the girl hardly noticed. She flung her arms around Jack's torso.

"Jack! I was so worried! Thank the goddess," she breathed. The colonel registered the slip of tongue, but wisely said nothing about it.

"Come on. Let's get you inside, kid. Your toes will freeze out here."

Back inside the house, Jack made Cassandra take off her soaked socks and dry her feet over the register. The hot air streaming out of the vent felt good against her toes, and she happily sat on the floor leaning back on her elbows while Jack occupied the closest armchair.

"You're okay? And Daniel? And Sam? And Teal'c?"

"Yeah, Cass, we're all okay. We just got held up on a mission. There were some people in trouble, and they needed our help, so we stayed on their planet for a little while longer than we were scheduled to. I'm sorry I missed our tradition last night."

"That's okay," the girl said, and the honesty of her sentiment showed on her open, innocent face. "Janet said it might be something like that. I'm just glad you're all al– okay."

The colonel ran a hand through his short hair and made a tortured face at the floor. He climbed off the armchair and lowered himself onto the floor next to the girl. When he was on her level, only then did he say what he knew he had to.

"Cassie, I'm not going to lie to you: what we do is a very dangerous job. People get hurt doing what we do, and sometimes they don't make it back. You know that, right?"

The girl nodded, remembering SG-7 died on Hanka along with everyone she had ever known. "Janet said you're all very good at what you do."

"We are, all of us. It's natural to worry about us, and frankly, I'd be a little insulted if you didn't." His little smile produced a matching one from her. "But I don't want you to worry so much that you stop thinking about homework and playing and everyone who doesn't go through the Stargate."

"Aren't you afraid, Jack? There are Goa'uld out there who want to kill you."

"Sure I'm afraid of that. But I'm more afraid of the Goa'uld coming to Earth and killing everyone who can't defend themselves. That's what being in the Air Force is all about: service before self."

Cassandra nodded slowly. "I understand. And I promise I'll try not to worry too much, but I will worry."

"Good. Now how about we make a snowman before you have to go to school? The doc made sure I knew you had to be there by 0945 sharp."

Cassandra's toes were uncomfortably warm by now, and she was eager to find out about this snowman-making tradition. When she returned from pulling on a fresh pair of socks in her room, Jack had on his jacket and sunglasses. He carried under his arm a scarf and cap. She shrugged on her winter clothes and followed Jack outside.

"A little crowded out here for collecting snow. We'll have to start in the back of the house."

They weaved through the hodge-podge lawn decorations and passed the inflatable snowman buffeted by the wind. Janet and Cassandra's snow angels had frosted over and maintained their shape in the crunchy snow.

The snow-covered backyard was undisturbed. The drifts rose and fell like motionless ocean waves. Even Homer had abandoned the backyard in favor of the crowded front yard. He followed now, tail wagging furiously, only because he followed Cassandra everywhere.

"You start a snowman by making a snowball like this." Jack scooped up a handful of snow and packed it into a sphere about the size of a baseball. Cassandra copied him. "Then, you roll in around on the ground until it's as big as you want it."

Working alongside the colonel, Cassandra rolled her snowball along the ground collecting snow to it and leaving behind a trough. Jack angled their paths around the side of the house and stopped next to the snow angels.

"We'll put up the snowman here so everyone can see our beautiful work."

He lifted Cassandra's smaller snowball on top of the one he and made and instructed Cassandra to make a third, even smaller than her first. She did so and carried it around from the back of the house. With Jack to steady her, she placed the third snowball. She looked from their stacked snowballs to the inflatable one flapping its arms in the wind.

"Okay, so … it needs a face, right?"

"A corncob pipe, a button nose, and two eyes made out of coal."

"What?" the girl asked. "What's a corncob … and a pipe ... and coal?"

"I guess we haven't gotten to Christmas songs yet, have we? Why don't we just find some rocks from that landscaping Janet has by the porch?"

The instant Homer saw his owner digging through the snow down to the ground, he came over to offer his assistance and sent snow flying between his hind legs as he tunneled through the snow twice as fast as Cassandra.

"Well, I'm getting another irate lecture about the dog," Jack said to himself. Teaching a puppy that digging in the yard was okay would not sit well with Janet.

Cassandra trotted back to their snowman with a hand full of the shiny black rocks Janet used in the landscaping around the house. They pressed the stones into the snowman's head for eyes, nose, and smiling mouth. Jack broke up a branch from the bare beech tree in the yard for arms. Cassandra found the winter items he had brought from the house and wrapped the snowman in what she recognized as one of her scarves and hat.

"And now we have a Cassandra snowman – woman – girl. Snowgirl."

His sense of humor never ceased to amuse Cassandra, so Jack was a little surprised when she didn't giggle or at least roll her eyes at him. She stared intently at the snowman, like she was a million light-years away. _A million light-years_. Jack guessed the problem right away.

"So, who do we make next?" he asked. "Snowwoman Carter? Snowjaffa Teal'c?"

Cassandra's face lit up, and she sped off to the backyard to begin making another large snowball base. A glance at his watch told Jack it was nearly nine o'clock already, and he had promised Janet to drop Cassandra off at school on time. But no matter what, he could not leave the snowman standing lonely in the yard.

When all was said and done, the backyard had been nearly stripped off all snow, and come Spring Janet would find half the stones in her landscaping missing. Six snowmen stood in a half-circle around the one wearing Cassandra's winter clothes in a kind of group hug with their branch arms touching. One wore a white lab coat borrowed from Janet's closet. Another wore a blue cravat from a woman's Air Force uniform around its neck and held a test tube-shaped icicle in its woody fingers. The third snowman donned round glasses, and the fourth wore Jack's own sunglasses. Another snowman had a balaclava pulled right down to his eyes to hide his entire forehead, and the stones forming his mouth sloped down in a frown. The last snowman had a perfectly bald head and two stars etched into the snow of both shoulders.

"They're perfect!" Cassandra announced, beaming with happiness and pride.

"They are," the colonel agreed. His watch had long ago told him he'd broken his promise to Janet, but the delight on the little girl's face was worth it. "I could stay out here all admiring our work, but … Time for school."

Cassandra shook off the worst of the packed snow from her gloves and boots outside and collected her backpack full of her school books from the dining room. By the time Jack pulled up in front of Cheyenne Mountain High School, it was well after 10:30.

"Are you going to get in trouble for being late?" he asked.

The girl shrugged and said matter-of-factly, "Not as much as you will be when Janet finds out you got me here forty-five minutes after school started."

Secretly, Jack knew Janet would understand when he explained about the lonely snowman, but he made a show of putting on a sardonic expression and shooing her out of the truck. He rolled down the window and called after her, "And don't tell them you're late because you were making snowmen."

"Oh, for crying out loud!" she called back. "I know that! I was going to tell them I'm late because of magnets."

With Jack's affably ridiculous cover story about to be put to good – and even less believable – use, Cassandra hitched her backpack strap higher on her shoulder and ran into the school feeling happier than she could ever remember.


	6. Hot Chocolate

**DECEMBER 6**

"**Hot Chocolate"**

When Cassandra ran up the bus steps and picked her way down the aisle past knees and backpacks leaking out of bench seats on either side, she became aware that half the bus peered out at her front yard. There were some smiles and some slack jaws.

"Wow," Sharon said, as soon as Cassandra joined her in the rear seats. "And here I thought you were done putting up every Christmas decoration ever made. Someone had fun making the snowmen."

Cassandra didn't register the vague insult. "Yeah! I did that yesterday with Jack. The little one is me, and the others are my foster mom's friends."

Sharon's mother was in the Air Force and worked in Cheyenne Mountain too, but in NORAD, not the SGC. She wouldn't know any Janet's friends, or have even heard anything about them, so Cassandra didn't elaborate.

"So are you auditioning today for the winter play? It's _A Christmas Carol_. It's my favorite Christmas play too. I want to play Belle."

Cassandra had read the script their drama teacher Mr. Owens had handed out to the entire seventh grade class whether they took drama or not the week of Thanksgiving, and she'd tried to read the book by Charles Dickens too over the break, but ended up just watching a movie because Charles Dickens didn't seem like a very good writer to her.

"Umm, no. I don't think so. I wouldn't really like to be up on stage in front of everybody. Miss Bradley said they would need some students to help make and paint the sets, so I'm going to do that."

Sharon looked highly skeptical about this choice. The bus rolled to a stop in front of the school and the students filed out, pushing and shoving the whole way. On the way to her locker, Cassandra heard students talking about little else besides the winter play or the winter concerts. Everyone wanted a part in the play or a solo, either with the choir or band, it seemed. Only a few students, too shy or not artistic, didn't want to take part in the winter festivities at school.

Like every day, Tessa came to find Cassandra by her locker. The younger girl looked excited and nervous. She had the script of _A Christmas Carol_ on top of her first period books and a lot of sticky notes peeking out of the pages.

"I'm trying out for The Ghost of Christmas Past," Tessa said breathlessly, "because that ghost is supposed to look like a child, and well, I'm smaller than almost anyone else who has a shot at getting a part. Will you help me rehearse over lunch?"

"Of course I will, Tessa. Not that I think you need it. You'll be really great."

"Thanks, Cass. I haven't forgotten about doing Christmas traditions, you know. I just wanted to learn my lines. What have you done so far anyway?"

Cassandra listed off all the fun things she'd done in the last five days while she collected her language arts books and a leisure reading novel from her locker. When she looked at Tessa again, she found the other girl staring at her curiously.

"Oh. I, umm, well, I thought you meant things less … usual. I mean, don't they have Christmas decorations in Toronto?"

Sensing they were nearing a very dangerous line of questions, Cassandra took off down the hallway to buy some time and think up an excuse. She thought it was a good thing she hadn't told her other friends about the traditions yet because they probably would have pressed for a similar answer too.

"We did, yeah … but, umm, my family was, umm … Amish," she blurted out. It was the best she could come up with on the spot, but she hoped Tessa didn't push for more detail because Cassandra had only heard about the Amish once. The most she knew about them was that they didn't have electricity.

"Oh! I didn't know there were Amish in Canada. But why didn't another Amish family become your foster parents? I mean, I'm glad Dr. Fraiser did and you're here, but I thought the Amish kept their communities together."

Cassandra felt a growing panic. She couldn't keep up the cover story – Janet had explained telling a lie for national security was a cover story – but she also couldn't tell Tessa the truth without getting into trouble. She mumbled some nonsense about her Amish community owing Janet a favor and said good-bye quickly before heading into class.

She worried that Tessa would want a better answer than she could give and spent most of the day dreaming up excuses to share with Tessa. They ranged from semi-believable to more outlandish even than the truth about her origins. Tessa, however, didn't ask about it the rest of the day. She was more worried about the auditions.

The day passed in a blur, and before Cassandra knew it, the fifth bell rang. Everyone auditioning for a part or solo in the winter play or concerts was dismissed from last period. She stored her books in her locker and filed to the auditorium with what seemed like three-quarters of the school. Mr. Owens, Miss Bradley, and the choir and band teachers separated the students into groups depending on what they wanted to do.

Cassandra and a handful of artistic students followed Miss Bradley to the storage space underneath the stage where sets and props were kept when the theater students weren't using them. She instructed each student to put together a small set for a different scene in the play. She assigned Cassandra the Cratchits' house.

"Use anything you can find under the stage. You have fifteen minutes starting now."

It was the strangest experience of Cassandra's life rushing around to decorate a poor family's historical dining room with odds and ends used for other plays over the years. She didn't lose her head like Madeleine or James, but she didn't think she did quite as well as Jordan or Alex. This Earth custom of trying to outdo everyone else was new to her still, and she didn't think to watch what her peers did and copy them like her classmates did.

After Miss Bradley inspected each of the students' sets, she handed out the assignments. Alex, Jordan, and James got be set decorators. Madeleine had done a pretty poor job putting her set together, but had found all the stuff quickly, so she was the Props Master.

"And Cassandra will be our set designer," Miss Bradley said. "That means Cassie will tell us what all the sets should look like and make drawings of them. The rest of you will fill the sets like you just did now. If you need some props you don't have, I'll let you use the art classroom to make them."

Finally, she handed out a form for the students to have their parents sign saying it was okay for them to stay after school an hour every night and one whole Saturday. Cassie folded up her form and put it in her pocket so she wouldn't lose it, then went to find Tessa.

"I think it went really well!" she said. "Mr. Owens said he'll post the cast list tomorrow morning."

"That's great, Tessa. Guess what? I'm the set designer!"

The girls chattered excitedly the whole way back to their lockers and out to the buses.

Cassandra could hardly wait to get home and tell Janet, but then she remembered her foster mother was working an overnight shift at the SGC. She had been so looking forward to the auditions that she had almost forgotten she would be staying at Sam's place and doing another holiday tradition.

When the bus dropped her off at home, Sam was wrestling an overexcited Homer into the backseat of her car and sporadically promising to throttle Jack for buying such a hyperactive dog while Teal'c loaded Cassandra's overnight bag into the trunk.

"I am not familiar with all of your military's rules, Captain Carter, but I believe that would be a court martialable offense," Teal'c said sagely.

"Okay, then maybe I'll _accidentally_ misdial the gate and send him to the – Cassie!"

Cassandra threw her arms around Sam's torso and ordered Homer to get into the car. Her dog obeyed without delay. After greeting Teal'c, the girl hopped into the backseat with her dog and strapped herself in. She told Sam and Teal'c her good news immediately and launched into an explanation of what set designers did. Once they exhausted the topic, she turned to the question only scarcely less exciting.

"So what's the Christmas tradition for tonight?"

"How do you feel about hot chocolate?" Sam asked, in a tone that clearly suggested Cassandra and Teal'c should be thrilled about it.

"I have no particular feelings about it," the Jaffa said, straight-faced as always.

"Well, you should," Sam informed them.

Cassandra found out why after dinner. Sam showed them how to warm up cocoa and sugar in a pan on the gas stove and add in the boiled water before the milk. A touch of vanilla flavoring, some whipped cream, and a pirouette cookie finished off the drink. They carried their mugs into the living room and sat down in front of the electric fire.

"This is the only way to enjoy hot chocolate," Sam said matter-of-factly. "It has to be this recipe, in front of a fire, when it is freezing cold outside. Otherwise, it's no good."

"Is that a rule like all kids on Earth have to have a dog?" Cassandra asked skeptically. After Jack had told her that, she'd found over half of her classmates did not have, nor had they ever had, a dog.

"No, but it is a Carter family rule."

Cassandra tested the piping hot drink tentatively. It was totally unlike the Snow Cream. Rich and creamy, it trickled down Cassandra's throat and warmed her from the inside. It tasted even better as the whipped cream started to melt and mix with the thick chocolate.

"This is amazing! How can you not drink this every day?"

"Because if I did, I wouldn't fit into my uniforms," Sam laughed. "So I take it you like this tradition."

"Definitely!"

After savoring a few more mouthfuls, Cassandra asked, "Sam, are all the Carter family holiday traditions about drinks?"

"No!" The woman waggled her eyebrows playfully. "There is cookie baking coming up too."

"I also find this tradition very enjoyable," Teal'c agreed. The Jaffa had given himself a whipped cream mustache that sent Sam and Cassandra into peals of giggles. "But perhaps it is one best enjoyed alone."

"No, come on, Teal'c," Sam said. "Holiday traditions aren't any fun if you do them alone. That's what this whole season is about, being with your friends and family."

She realized a beat too late that Cassandra had no family left and as a traitor Teal'c could not return to his. Her smile slipped, and she struggled to find a suitable segue. She accepted after a moment there was no changing the subject just yet.

"And that's why we've planned to do these traditions with as many of us together as we can manage. Janet, Daniel, Colonel O'Neill, me, we all understand how hard it is to lose family or be separated from them."

"It is difficult," Teal'c said gravely, "though the presence of my friends and our just cause has made my exile bearable."

Cassandra answered by leaning her head against Sam's shoulder and giving her a one-armed hug. "This is your mom's recipe too, isn't it?"

Sam nodded with a sad smile. "I think most of my holiday traditions were hers. Snow Creams, Hot Chocolate, Cookies …. In fact, I can't think of a single Carter family tradition that actually comes from the Carter side of the family and doesn't involve food."

"Captain Carter," Teal'c said seriously, "I will make myself available for all of your holiday traditions."

A round of laughter and second helpings of hot chocolate eased the conversation back into lighter subjects and kept them gathered around the electric fire until well past Cassandra's bed time.


	7. Snowball Fight

**DECEMBER 7**

"**Snowball Fight"**

School continued buzzing with excitement about the winter play and concert on Friday. The cast of the play and the soloists names were posted around lunch time and everyone spent the rest of the day discussing whether they were happy or disappointed. Tessa got the part she wanted, The Ghost of Christmas Past, and spent every free moment obsessing over her lines even though the play wasn't until December 20th.

Cassandra left school in high spirits and excited to start working on the sets come Monday. She spent most of math class sketching in the margins of her notes, and she still daydreamed about sets when the bus dropped her off at home. She had got halfway up the driveway before she noticed Daniel's car there. Next thing she knew, a great glob of freezing snow hit her back and exploded around her head.

"What – " she shrieked, and spun around to see who threw snow at her.

Another missile slammed into her, and this time the snow flew up into her face. She was using her gloved fingers to brush away the wet slush from her eyes when she was bodily lifted off the ground and thrown over a shoulder. Her attacker or rescuer ran around the side of the house. Someone hurled a third snowball that narrowly missed her.

"Are you all right, Captain?" Jack demanded, depositing Cassandra in a packed snow bank. He sat beside her and used a mirror to peer around the corner of the house.

Picking up the game immediately, Cassandra nodded vigorously with a huge grin playing on her face. "Yes, sir! The enemy caught me off guard, but it won't happen again, sir. What are we dealing with, sir?"

"We've got hostiles at eleven and three o'clock. They're the scariest kind of monsters you've ever seen, Captain: scientists. One doctor, one archeologist."

The girl feigned a shudder. "Lucky we have a tactical advantage, sir. I know the layout of this planet like the back of my hand. I play here all the time."

"That's what I want to hear, Captain. We can't outflank them and hold the Stargate." Jack motioned to the garden shed on the back corner of the lot. "I'm going in straight up the middle. That should buy you time to dial home."

"Yes, sir. Good luck, sir. I'll radio when we have a lock."

Jack scooped up a handful of snow and molded it into a lumpy ball. Cassandra followed his example, and when they had a few snowballs each, he used the mirror to peer around the side of the house again. He pulled his hand back quickly, held up two fingers and pointed around the house. Cassandra nodded and pushed herself to her feet. Crouching as she ran for the garden shed, she felt a snowball whizz over her head and battle cries from Daniel and Janet as they charged around the house into the backyard.

Kneeling down in the snow, Cassandra drew a wide circle and scratched random symbols into it with her gloved finger. She had only dialed the third coordinate when three snowballs slammed into her side in rapid succession. She fell over with the force of it and peered up into the grinning face of Daniel Jackson.

"Surrender!" he demanded in what Cassandra supposed was meant to be a sinister voice. "Or we kill your friend."

Jack knelt on the snow in the middle of the yard with his hands behind his head. Janet stood over his with a snowball held threatening over him. Cassandra's fingers twitched around her last snowball and looked at Jack for instructions.

"Colonel?"

"Negative, Captain."

With a furious grimace – and a barely contained squeal of delight – Cassandra dropped her snowball to the ground and raised her arms behind her head. Daniel led the prisoners to their cell, which had been made by building up a wall of snow to knee height.

"I'm sorry, Colonel. I should have been watching my six," Cassandra moaned.

Jack sat next to her in their cell with his hands on his knees. Janet and Daniel paced in front of the cell bouncing snowballs in their palms and exchanging villainous glances that threatened to turn into peals of laughter.

"It's all right, Captain. We couldn't have known they would use their devious scientific knowledge to make our weapons ineffective. What we have to focus on now is escape."

"Yes, sir. The SGC will mount a rescue, right? Never leave a man behind."

"That's right. Let's help the S&R team as much as we can."

They bowed their heads together and discussed how to get past the energy field prison bars while Daniel and Janet paused in front of the cell to leer evilly, and then turn away quickly when they couldn't hold back the child-like glee anymore.

Jack and Cassandra had yet to decide on a plan of escape when a barrage of snowballs came sailing across the yard at Daniel and Janet. Four figures – two children, one adult, and a cocker spaniel – burst out of the evergreen hedges along the fence wielding snowballs and screaming bloody murder. Daniel and Janet threw up their arms to protect their faces and were forced to retreat around the garden shed as their attackers surged forward, scooping up more snow from the ground as they ran.

"It's okay. You're rescued!" Kayla Hammond announced. Tessa's little sister had bright red cheeks flushed from the cold, and her pink cap had been knocked askew to reveal wispy dark curls.

"We were doing strategic reconnaissance with our stealth drone," Tessa explained. The cocker spaniel named Elle trailed a dog leash and wagged her tail happily. "We saw your situation, and General Hammond ordered us to move in along the perimeter."

"We're lucky you came when you did, Lieutenants," Jack said. "I don't know how much longer we could have lasted with our butts freezing to the ground."

General George Hammond, clad in a thick green winter coat and gray sock cap over his bald head appeared in front of the jail cell. He was the picture of indignation. "Colonel, what the heck happened? Who were those people?"

"Monsters, sir. Evil villainous devious monsters. They call themselves scientists." From the corner of his eye, Jack spotted Daniel and Janet making a run for it. They were making a beeline for a blue blur in the snow.

"My pack!" Cassandra cried. She had dropped it when Jack put her down behind the house. "Sirs, they're going for the secret files about P3 – umm, Project Skywalker!" She glanced sidelong at Tessa and Kayla, but they hadn't noticed anything amiss.

Five hands plunged into the snow and formed lumpy snowballs as quickly as their hands would work. They ran forward, pelting the doctor and archeologists as they went, but Janet had the backpack already.

"It's too late!" she cried. "We have the secret Project Skywalker files. Nothing can stop us now!"

They dashed off around the side of the house, and the girls would have followed, but General Hammond barked a series of orders in a commanding voice that kept them rooted to the spot just a little while longer.

"Our mission is to get back those secret files at all costs. The safety of the planet is in our hands. Colonel, you take the Captain north around the house. I'll go with the Lieutenants Hammond around the south. We'll take the stealth drone with us." The dog woofed as if she understood her orders. "On my signal, we attack. Good luck."

Cassandra and Jack ran quickly, bent low to the ground and gathering fistfuls of snow as they rounded the house. At the northeast corner, they halted and waited for the General and his granddaughters. Jack had taken out a small rectangular spyglass and observed the yard before handing it over to Cassandra.

"They've taken cover behind the giant inflatable snowman. Damn! I never should have put that so close to the house. It's the perfect cover."

The girl couldn't make out anything through the glass because it all looked too big, but she did see General Hammond give the signal from the southwest corner of the house. In unison, the attackers surged forward with snowballs flying. Daniel and Janet had been building up a surplus of snow weapons while they waited for the inevitable assault and returned fire rapidly.

The three girls ran around the yard between the crowd of lawn ornaments, throwing themselves behind toy soldiers and candy canes like actors did their in their favorite adventure movies. Using hand signals that looked like military communications, but really meant nothing at all, they coordinated an attack on the snowman fortress.

"We have you now, scientists!" Kayla exclaimed. The girls had leapt onto the porch and loomed over their adversaries seated in a snow bank. They each held a snowball aloft.

Jack snatched the backpack from Daniel and peered inside. "Everything is here, General. I don't think they've had time to read anything yet."

"Good. Then let's get these people back to base." Daniel and Janet allowed themselves to be marched into the house with snowballs held to their backs. "Captain, Lieutenants, excellent work today. The Air Force is lucky to have you all."

Cassandra, Tessa, and Kayla snapped to attention and saluted the General.

Later, after drying out their wet socks and warming up in front of the register, Tessa and Kayla joined Cassandra at the dining room table for a game of Sorry! while the adults talked over coffee in the living room.

"So you were just walking your dog with your grandpa and saw us playing?" Cassandra asked. "It wasn't planned at all?"

Kayla shrugged. "I don't think so. Grandpa seemed pretty set on walking Elle even though it's cold, and he said we had to walk her down your street. But, no, I don't think so."

The older girls smiled indulgently at Tessa's little sister, but let her go on thinking it had been a happy accident and excuse to play in the snow. Cassandra used a 4 card to go backwards and knock Kayla's green piece home and did all the usual gloating that came with a game of Sorry!.

Secretly, she wanted to go give General Hammond a huge hug and a thank you for being another adult in her life who cared about her and wanted her to be happy. She would do it one day, she promised herself, when everyone in the room had the right security clearance to hear what she had to say.


	8. Christmas Shopping

**DECEMBER 8**

"**Christmas Shopping"**

Cassandra waited until Janet's back was turned, and then offered her last slice of crispy bacon to Homer. The dog wolfed it down in one swallow and eagerly made puppy eyes at his owner, but her plate was clean. She patted his head and carried her dishes over to the sink.

"Are you sure you can't go with us?"

Janet smiled as she scrubbed the frying pan and peered down at the girl. "No, I'm afraid I can't. General Hammond gave me orders to go off world, so that's what I'm doing today. You and Sam are going to have fun, though."

The doctor didn't mention that she wasn't sorry to avoid the disgruntled crowds that flocked to the mall to do their Christmas shopping. She preferred to do her shopping early in the year when the crowds were thinner and stores didn't torture customers by playing Christmas carols on an endless loop. She would take an off world mission in HAZMAT gear over that any day.

Sam arrived to pick up Cassandra right on time. She had traded out her favorite skirts and heels for a functional pair of jeans and tennis shoes. The backseat of her car was clear of all normal debris. Even the box of Kleenex had been removed to make room for all their upcoming purchases.

"Christmas shopping is serious business, huh?" the girl inquired. She desperately wanted to peek in the trunk to see if Sam had gone so far as to remove the winter survival gear too.

"You'd better believe it. We're talking grannies elbowing you to get the best deals and people ramming you with carts. Christmas shopping is war."

Sam pulled out of the driveway and rolled slowly to the stop sign at the end of the street. The gusty winds and overnight sleet had made the roads treacherous if the salt trucks hadn't rumbled by yet. On the main roads through the city, the rush of traffic crunched over the fresh salt traction. Every car seemed destined for one of the malls.

"Oh. And this is a fun tradition for you?"

"Once you get past the rude shoppers and harassed employees."

"What? Once you get past the rude shoppers and harassed employees, what? Isn't that all there is to shopping: shoppers and employees?"

"No! Just wait and see. We'll have so much fun today."

More cars filled the mall parking lot than Cassandra had ever seen there before. Long lines of cars idled in the aisles with turn signals flashing, all hoping for that one coveted spot nearly a mile from the entrance. Twice a car coming the opposite direction swooped in and stole the space Sam wanted to take. Fifteen minutes after pulling into the lot, Sam finally parked the car.

"That was fun," Cassandra said sarcastically.

"You," the woman said, wagging a finger, "need to stop channeling Colonel O'Neill and just trust me on this. You're going to love shopping by the end of the day."

They climbed out of the car and walked what felt like miles to the mall entrance. After the bitter cold and harsh wind outside, the mall interior felt stifling hot. The scent of cinnamon and apples filled Cassandra's nose, and she thought this might not be so bad after all. Then a woman with her three squabbling children careened through the entrance, knocked Cassandra over, and barreled past without so much as an apology.

"What's not to love?" Cassandra inspected the redden skin of her palms that had slapped painfully against the tile and broken her fall.

Within ten minutes, the girl felt so hot in her winter coat she shrugged it off – accidentally tapping a woman's arm as she did so and getting yelled at for it – and carried it over her arm with her scarf, hat, and gloves shoved inside. They rode the escalator up to the top floor where Sam predicted the crowds would be thinner. She was dead wrong.

They struggled through stores burgeoning with people, and Cassandra helped Sam pick out presents for everyone but herself. Sam in turn offered suggestions to Cassandra. Janet had given her money for presents, which she called an "allowance" for the chores she had done, but the girl liked the idea of making presents too.

"Is there an art store in the mall?" she asked.

Sam's face lit up. "Yeah, there is. Are you going to make us presents?"

"I don't think I'm supposed to tell you that. You wouldn't tell me what you got me for Christmas."

The captain conceded the point and picked a path through the stagnant crowds blocking the wide corridors. Down an escalator and another hallway, she led the girl into an arts and crafts supply store full of blue-haired grandmothers picking out yarn for Christmas sweaters and artistic types debating over mediums.

"I don't know anything about art," Sam admitted and chose to ignore Cassandra's emphatic agreement. "So you lead the way."

The girl picked out an assortment of art supplies, mostly paper, canvases, and some new paint colors. The cost of it took up most of what Janet had given Cassandra, which seemed bizarre to Sam since making presents was supposed to be cheaper than buying them.

"And now we come to the most fun part of Christmas shopping. Lunch!"

Cassandra cocked an eyebrow, but dutifully followed Sam through the mass of people to the food court. The juggled their packages and balanced trays of fried Japanese food while they battled for a table. At last, they found a couple finishing their lunch and standing to leave. They made a charge through the seating area to rival the South storming the hill at Gettysburg and threw themselves into the plastic seats lest any enemy shoppers try to steal them in a sneak attack.

"You were right, Sam," Cassandra said, panting slightly. "Shopping is war!"

They enjoyed a languid lunch and ignored the hostile eyes of shoppers who wanted their table. Sam reviewed all of her purchases to make sure she had a gift for everyone on her list. Cassandra had learned a lot about Sam in the past few hours, like the fact that she had a brother and a niece and nephew and that her father was an Air Force General. The girl herself had only one bag from the art supply store, but already she was thinking about what to make for everyone.

"I've got everything. How about you, Cass?" She girl nodded. "Good. Then there's just one more stop we have to make. You're probably too old for it, so I won't make you do it, but you should see it anyway."

Curious now, Cassandra followed Sam eagerly down a series of escalators and to the south end of the mall where a gaggle of parents and small children waited in a winding line. Teenage girls in yellow leggings and green jackets corralled the children forward to sit on the lap of a large man in a red coat. She stopped dead.

"_Santa Claus is here?_" she hissed.

"Well, no. This is just a man pretending to be Santa. So you know about him?"

"Oh, yes, I know _all_ about Santa Claus. But it's strange that a Goa'uld would let humans dress up like him. Does he kill them afterward for sacrilege?"

Sam did a double take, and her mouth worked silently for a few moments. All last, she gasped the only thing she could manage, "_What!_"

"Next time Teal'c is around, we'll tell you all about how Santa Claus is a Goa'uld. Jack agrees with us."

The captain made a derisive sound in the back of her throat that was the closest she'd ever come to disrespecting her commanding officer. Cassandra beat a hasty retreat to the exit with a few uncomfortable glances over her shoulder that told Sam she was genuinely disturbed by the idea of Santa Claus.

"So what do we do with the presents?" the girl asked while pulling on her coat. "Do we hide them until Christmas?"

"Sort of. We gift wrap them. I've got everything ready at my house."

Back at the car, Sam proved that she had not removed her winter survival gear for the sake of shopping bags, but that cleaning out the backseat had been a good idea. Leaving the mall was no simpler or faster than arriving. Cars jammed the exits turning in both directions, and it took over a half hour to drive the five miles to Sam's house.

They spent the next two hours listening to Christmas music playing on the stereo with rolls of wrapping paper, ribbon, and gift labels strewn over Sam's living room floor. Cassandra never did get the hang of cutting the paper in a straight line and folding it neatly around a box, but judging from the packages Sam declared finished, she never had either.

When, at last, a pile of wrapped boxes perched under the boughs of Sam's Christmas tree – which was three times the size of Janet and Cassandra's – they collapsed onto the couches exhausted from their trying day.

"So did you have fun?" Sam wanted to know.

Cassandra considered the rude shoppers, the bruises she would have from granny elbows, and the worst traffic she'd seen in two months on Earth. She nodded. "Definitely. But let's never do it again."

"That's what I say every year."


	9. Ice Skating

**DECEMBER 9**

"**Ice Skating"**

Cassandra lay on her bed with sketches of a festive Christmastime street all around her. Homer stretched out languidly over more than one of the drawings basking in the warm sunlight reflecting off the high snow drift under the window. The dog had fallen asleep an hour ago and frequently barked in his sleep. The girl added in a large dog to the corner of her newest drawing, but she knew Mr. Owens wouldn't allow Homer in the play no matter how well he minded Cassandra.

A knock on the door roused Homer from sleep. He woke with a howl as Cassandra called for her visitor to come in. Daniel pushed open the door and peered in curiously. Homer leapt over her back and excitedly greeted the newcomer.

"Janet said you were working on the set designs." He picked up an image of the Cratchit's house, but quickly set it down again and turned away to sneeze. "This is very good, Cassie. I don't want to disturb you, but I wondered if you wanted to take a break and do another holiday tradition."

"Yeah, of course!" She dropped her pencil immediately and sprang off the bed. After fighting her dog back, she welcomed Daniel with a hug. "But I thought you were going off world today."

"Well, a _certain doctor_," he raised his voice to make sure Janet heard him in the living room, "wouldn't clear me to go off world."

A set of footsteps descended down the hallway, and though Cassandra couldn't see the short woman behind Daniel, she knew Janet would be glaring reproachfully at him. Sure enough, when Daniel shifted his weight, she caught a glimpse of the doctor in just that pose.

"Even the mildest bacteria on Earth could be detrimental to populations on other worlds. We can't eliminate all risk, but if you're showing symptoms, of course I'm not going to clear you to go off world."

"It's a cold," the archeologist protested.

"And if the world SG-1 went to explore today has never seen a virus like it, we could start a worldwide epidemic."

"It's a cold."

"And I'm sure the Europeans said 'It's only small pox.'"

Daniel grimaced. "Point taken."

"I don't understand," Cassandra said eagerly.

As a scholar, Daniel couldn't resist teaching. She wasn't disappointed. The whole time as they donned winter gear, walked out to Daniel's warm car, and drove through Colorado Springs, he summarized roughly four hundred years of European exploration in the Americas. He kept up the stream even as they parked and stood in line. He spoke so quickly and about a topic so interesting Cassandra didn't consider interrupting, and Janet couldn't get in a word edgewise if she'd wanted to.

"Three," Janet said to the clerk standing at the high counter. She gave the man her shoe size and Cassandra's. "Daniel, give the gentleman your shoe size."

" – and I theorize that means Ancient Egyptians actually travelled to the Americas, but that's a little off the subj – what? Oh!" Daniel looked genuinely surprised to find they had reached their destination even though he had driven there and walked inside.

The man behind the counter passed over three of the oddest contraptions Cassandra had ever seen in her life. They were like boots with low heels, only there was some kind of a curved metal edge attached to the sole. She held her pair up, frowning at it.

"We're going ice skating," Daniel announced.

Peering around the lodge, Cassandra saw everyone wore a pair of ice skates. Some tottered around awkwardly on the blade edge as they made their way to a large oval-shaped rink out a set of double doors while others sat around the circular fire grates sipping hot chocolate and resting.

Janet helped her get the skates laced up tightly and Daniel deposited their shoes in a locker. While the adults tied up their own skates, she decided to test out the blades to see what this tradition was all about. The minute she stood up, both ankles bent outward and she toppled over with her arms flailing around trying to find balance.

"Cassie, be careful!" Janet said, helping her up. "Walking on ice skates takes practice. When we get out on the ice, I want you to hold our hands. You could seriously hurt yourself if you try that again on ice."

"It's such fun spending time with doctors," Daniel sassed, winking at Cassandra.

"Especially if you've just been seduced by Goa'uld pheromones," Janet shot back.

Daniel blinked and searched for a comeback but found none. He held out a hand for the girl. "All right. Let's teach you how to ice skate."

With an adult on either side holding her hand, Cassandra wobbled her way down the rubber matting to the ice rink under a high glass dome. Out on the ice, skaters twirled and spun or clung to the wall and fell down, depending on their level of experience. There seemed no stage between absolute beginner and amazing skater.

Walking on ice with the skate blades was the strangest sensation. Cassandra felt the metal dig into the ice, but regardless she felt about to topple over. If Janet and Daniel hadn't been holding her hands, she knew she would have made crazy windmill motions to try and keep herself upright.

"Hold your feet straight," Daniel instructed.

He and Janet pushed off of the ice at the same time and pulled the girl along between them. Her skates glided gracefully over the ice, and a smile bloomed across her mouth. After a few laps, Daniel skated backwards with both of the girl's hands in his while Janet glided behind to catch her if she fell. Little by little, Cassandra began to take steps on her own.

"Don't try to walk, Cass," Janet said. "Push a little sideways and shift your weigh while you do."

In an hour of practice, she progressed from shaky ankles to having a good sense of balance on the ice. She had fallen a couple times after Daniel and Janet stopped holding her hands, but she was resilient and jumped back up to try again.

"I think I've got it! Can I try on my own?"

The adults rested on the benches around the ice rink while a determined Cassandra tested her footing near the wall. She pushed off and glided with one hand hovering over the railing. Twice, she grabbed it just in time to keep from landing on the ice.

"I really admire what you're doing, Janet. It can't be easy, doing it alone. I just want you to know, if you need anything, I'm here."

"I don't know how I could have said no. She has such a sweet temperament, and she's precocious. She's been through so much. She deserves a loving home."

"Yes, and that's exactly why most people would have refused to take her in. Trust me. I know." Janet hadn't taken her eyes off her fledgling foster daughter when she answered, but she turned sharply to Daniel now. The question in her eyes prompted him to explain. "You know my parents died when I was a little younger than Cassie. But what you don't know – what I haven't told anyone – is that I was raised in foster care. Not just for a little while, but until I was seventeen."

Janet's gaze was drawn to Cassandra. She had always made the connection between Cassandra and Daniel's pasts, but now she recognized the similarity of their temperaments as well. She felt a seed of fear in the pit of her stomach that that would be Cassandra's future.

"I had no idea, Daniel. I don't want that for Cassie."

"You sound like you're thinking about …. Well, I think I speak for all of us when I say I can't think of a better person."

Janet attempted a laugh, but it came out as a sad sound in the back of her throat. "I don't know that I've done a very good job so far. I'm always at work, sometimes overnight, and leaving unexpectedly when Dr. Warner calls me in. There are so many of her questions I can't answer or don't know how to."

A warm hand closed over hers, and she looked up to see Daniel smiling kindly at her. "I have had a lot of … parents, Janet. I know the good ones when I see them, and I'm telling you, there is no one better for Cassie."

"I wonder if she thinks so. She's bonded with Jack and Sam and you so much more than she has with me."

"That's because we don't make her do her homework and go to bed at nine o'clock and eat all sorts of new Earth vegetables. And because, each in our own way, we're all a little damaged like she is, and we all have a chip on our shoulder because of it. She needs someone whole to show her how it doesn't have to be that way."

"No pressure," she murmured.

"You're a doctor and an Air Force officer. Pressure doesn't faze you."

"You sound awfully confident of how I feel."

"No, but how you react. I watched you treat a base full of cavemen without batting an eyelash," Daniel said, with a laugh.

Janet couldn't hold back her own laughter. They had the strangest job in the world, possibly in the whole galaxy. But she was grateful for it. Without the bizarre events so often seen in the SGC, she never would have met the orphaned alien child who gave her life such joy.


	10. Baking Cookies

**DECEMBER 10**

"**Baking Cookies"**

Night had fallen when Tessa's mother dropped Cassandra off at home after the first play rehearsal. While the cast of the play and the stage crew practiced their timing and parts, Cassandra and the art team had met in Miss Bradley's classroom to begin talking about the sets and props. Then they had all gone to the room below the stage to find premade set pieces and wheel them up a ramp to the backstage area.

"Let's start with Scrooge's house," Cassandra had told the art team, and they'd gotten to work with Miss Bradley assembling something that looked like a four poster bed, but was really just a wooden box with poles and draping it with sheets they made to look dusty. They hadn't gotten very much farther, but Cassandra was happy with what they had done so far.

"Bye, Tessa! Thanks for dropping me off, Mrs. Hammond."

The girl waved as she ran up the driveway to the house where Homer waited in the window seat. It had started to snow around three o'clock and had gotten heavier as the afternoon progressed. By the time Cassandra walked in the front door, a layer of fluffy flakes coated her hair and shoulders.

"I'm home, Janet."

"In the kitchen."

She trotted through the living room with the snow gradually melting and soaking into her hair and sweater. Homer followed on her heels, trying to lick the few snow clumps that stuck to the cuffs of her jeans.

Janet removed a glass casserole dish from the oven and lifted the aluminum foil to check on the progress of the beef stroganoff. The girl breathed in the sharp scent of warm sour cream and savory beef cutlets with a satisfied smile.

"Why don't you set the table, Cass? Places for four."

"Who is coming for dinner? Is it part of today's holiday tradition?" she asked while removing plates and utensils for four from the overhead cabinet.

"Colonel O'Neill and Sam. All I know is that Sam told me to preheat the oven to three-fifty, which is why I even bothered to make dinner after the day I had. When you're done setting the table, help me with the mashed potatoes, okay?"

Dinner was ready by seven o'clock, just as Jack and Sam knocked on the door and Homer broke into frantic barking. Cassandra let them in while Janet finished putting the food on the table. Sam had a cleanly stitched cut along her jaw, and the girl stiffened when she saw it.

"Remember what I told you," Jack said softly, laying a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder. She nodded and tore her eyes from Sam's injury.

They went into the dining room and took places around the table.

"She can perform life-saving surgery and cook," Jack observed. At the cool reaction from Janet, he clarified, "The life-saving thing being much more important."

After dinner and cleaning up, the adults gathered in the kitchen for another holiday tradition. It didn't last long, however, before Janet's pager went off calling her back to work at the SGC.

"I'm so sorry, Cass," she apologized while shrugging on her coat and heading out the door.

"Don't worry, Janet," Sam said. "Cassie can stay with me tonight."

"We'll try not to burn the house down," Jack added unhelpfully.

Cassandra had gotten used to Janet being called away unexpectedly and honestly didn't mind. If she was at work, it meant she was saving someone, and Cassandra couldn't be upset about that. She followed Sam back into the kitchen.

"Cookies!" Sam announced. "Carter family recipe."

Jack hung back while Sam and Cassandra dove into mixing up the cookie dough looking like he didn't quite understand how he'd gotten roped into this particular tradition. The few times he tried to help, he inevitable measured something wrong and Sam had to fix it.

"Maybe we should leave you out of the cooking traditions, sir," Sam suggested.

"I don't understand, Jack," the girl said, peering into the dough he had made far too sugary. "I thought pilots had to take math and stuff." Sam bit her lip to keep from smiling.

"Math, yes. Measuring, no."

When five bowls of cookie dough sat around the table, Sam declared the fun part had come. Using a greased rolling pin, she flattened the dough on wax paper spread over the countertop and brought out a Ziploc bag full of cookie cutters in the shape of gingerbread men, candy canes, snowmen, bells, and wreaths.

"Here's something even Colonel O'Neill can do." The Captain pressed a gingerbread man into the dough and laid it out a greased cookie sheet.

Jack cocked an eyebrow. "Oh? Have you heard of the word "insubordination," Captain?"

"Yes, sir, I have," she replied straight-faced, and then punched out a second gingerbread man.

The colonel stared for a moment, like he'd never seen this person before, and then full of mock indignation, snatched up the Ziploc bag and took out a cookie cutter. Cassandra giggled at their antics and selected a cookie cutter of her own. It was shaped like crossed candy canes. They cut out shapes until the dough looked like scraps, then Sam rolled it out again. They repeated the process until the dough was all used. Sam slid the cookie sheets into the oven and set the timer.

"Now, we wait. Do you have homework, Cassie?"

She admitted she did and trudged off to collect her backpack from her room. Sam helped her with pre-algebra while Jack played tug-o-war with Homer in the living room. She finished her homework as the oven buzzer went off.

"Now we get to eat!" Jack said, patting his stomach.

"Now we get to decorate," Sam corrected.

This turned out to be something else Jack did well. He made an effort to decorate the cookies with untraditional colors and accidentally broke several cookies so he could eat them instead of spread icing, sprinkles, and miniature M&Ms on them. When at last the cookies were done and on cooling racks, they covered every surface in the kitchen. Cassandra was hard pressed to keep Homer from jumping up and stealing them.

With warm, fresh baked cookies and cold glasses of milk, they went into the living room and sat down to watch a rerun of _The Simpsons_ and listen to Jack's theory of Burns as a Goa'uld. Cassandra understood, but Sam only shook her head.

It was a little past Cassandra's usual bedtime when Sam announced it was time to head home. Jack said goodnight, and the girl went to put together a bag of everything she'd need. She had stayed with Sam enough that packing an overnight bag was a pretty quick affair. With Homer's leash in hand, they headed out to Sam's car.

The wind had picked up significantly since Tessa's mom had dropped Cassandra off three hours earlier. The roads were treacherous on the short drive to Sam's house even though salt trucks thundered by frequently.

"Looks like the snow is worse than expected. I think you might be in for your first ever snowstorm, Cass."

An hour after Cassandra went to bed, Sam came to check on her. Seeing that she was still awake, Sam said that all schools in the area had been cancelled the next day.

"So you can stay up if you want to," Sam offered, "and sleep in tomorrow. I have to be on base at 0700 no matter what for a mission, but you've stayed alone all day before, right?"

"Anytime Janet works on the weekend."

Like any twelve-year-old, she jumped at the chance to stay up and watch _The Tonight Show_. Before Sam allowed that, they filled the bathtubs and sinks with water, placed candles and flashlights in every room, and dug extra blankets out of the hall closet.

"Just in case," Sam said.

She flipped on _The Tonight Show_, and Cassandra curled up next to her under one of the spare blankets. She fell asleep before Jay Leno finished his opening monologue.


	11. Snowstorm

**DECEMBER 11**

"**Snowstorm"**

The ringing telephone woke Cassandra from a deep sleep. She pried her eyes open and blinked blearily at the red digital numbers on the bedside alarm. 8 o'clock. For a moment, she panicked thinking she was late for school before remembering school had been cancelled. The answering machine clicked on and Janet's voice spoke to the empty living room.

"Cassie, it's Janet. It's okay; you can pick up Sam's phone."

The girl rolled out of the warm bed and darted for the nearest phone. The heater pumped hot air through the vents, but it felt chilly in the house after the cozy embrace of the comforter.

"Hello, Janet," she said into the receiver.

"Oh, thank goodness, Cassie. Honey, I'm so sorry you're alone today. No one realized how bad it was going to get."

"It's okay. Sam told me about snowstorms. I'll be fine."

"If you're not, you can call Tessa's mom. I've already spoken with her, and she said you could stay with them."

"Okay, but I'm really fine."

Cassandra pushed aside the curtain and peered out at the frosty white world. Snow completely covered the yard fence, and wind devils swirled across the glittery snow. The sun had risen into a perfectly clear sky, and the world sounded unnaturally quiet without cars whizzing by.

"All right, then. I've been called off world. There's no reason to worry; it's not for SG-1. They've checked in and said they're on a friendly planet and expect to be back in twelve hours as scheduled. I've left a message for Sam so she knows you're still at her house."

"Be safe, Janet. I worry about you too."

Cassandra spent her first free hour padding around the house eating breakfast, getting dressed, and making up the spare bed. Then she garbed up and took Homer outside for a very short walk. It looked pretty from the window, but it was bitter cold. The wind bit so fiercely her face felt raw after ten minutes. Any notion she had had of frolicking in the snow vanished quickly. Even the thick-furred Akita retreated into the house willingly.

The house felt delightfully warm after being outside, but the chill lingered in her bones. She layered herself in all the clothes she'd brought and threw a blanket around her shoulders like a cloak for good measure.

Cassandra occupied herself by finishing all her homework for the week and riffling through Sam's bookshelf. With a volume on famous astronomers in hand, she curled up on the couch with Homer.

The weather took a turn for the worse around two o'clock. Billowing snow clouds descended on Colorado Springs from the mountains, and a newly steely gray sky blocked the sun. The wind picked up until it thrashed the house and shook the shutters.

Every few moments, Cassandra paused and looked up from the book. She kept losing her place and read the same line about Carl Sagan three times before giving up. She needed something loud to distract her from the racket of the wind and the unnaturally dark afternoon. She turned on the television and watched _The Princess Bride_ for twenty minutes while trying desperately to ignore her niggling worry.

"It's okay, Homey," she assured her dog. "Nothing to worry about."

She had no more said it aloud then the television winked out, the lights extinguished, and with a slowing hum every electrical appliance in the house shut off. Cassandra sat immobile on the couch, in the near dark and silence, without a clue what was happening.

What on Earth could knock out the power? So much of the world was covered with the power lines that kept the computers and refrigerators and furnaces going that it was inconceivable to her they could ever fail. But this must be why Sam had gotten out the candles. Cassandra struggled out of the blanket she'd wrapped herself in and went around the house striking matches and touching them to wicks. Wondering if she should call Tessa's mom now, she tested the phone, but heard no dial tone.

With light in the house, she climbed back onto the couch and waited for the power to start working again. The longer it took, the more uneasy she became. With the electric furnace not working, and the wind thrashing the siding, the house began to cool and even Cassandra's many layers couldn't keep her comfortably warm. She retrieved all the blankets Sam had gotten out of storage and threw them over the couch one on top of the other, and then she crawled beneath the cloth fortress with Homer.

The silence stretched on for what felt like hours until the girl hardly remembered she was safe on Earth and began to tremble with fear. Life had not been this quiet since she left Hanka, where only animal sounds and the churning windmills produced white noise. She had become accustomed to the electrical hum of Earth. In the end, Hanka had gone silent too.

_With the darkness will come the Apocalypse_. That was the ancient Hankan prophecy. It had come true there, and now the darkness had come again. Was it the end of Earth now? There was no way to know with the power out and the phones dead. She might be all alone in the world again.

But Janet, Sam, Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c were off world! No matter what happened on Earth, they would come through the Stargate for her again! Pulling the top of the blanket down slightly, she peered over the edge at the wall clock, and saw to her dismay hours _had_ passed. It was ten o'clock, and SG-1 was two hours over due.

She huddled down into the blankets and buried her face in Homer's soft fur. She remembered the day Jack had given the dog to her and learning the motto "service before self" from him later. Service before self meant she couldn't let her fear become the most important thing to her.

"No!" she cried suddenly. Homer started and whined at her. "I won't just sit here and hide again!"

Cassandra leapt up from the blanket fort, and though the cold room sent shivers through her, she did not retreat into their warmth. Sam had told her she was brave down in the room deep underground, and brave people didn't hide under blankets and cry.

"We're going to save ourselves, Homey."

She took her winter coat off the rack and pulled it on. Only then did the dog reluctantly leave the pile of blankets. He whined pitifully and grabbed the bottom of her jacket in his mouth to tug at it. Cassandra would not be dissuaded. She wrapped her scarf around her neck and pulled on her hat, then clicked Homer's leash to his collar.

"I'm going to find out what's going on if it means I have to walk all the way to the SGC!"

The temperature outside had plummeted since Cassandra last took Homer outside. Without the warmth of the sun, the freezing cold felt like a kick in the chest. The girl forced herself to lock the door and pull it close behind her.

"It's can't be that bad, Homer. People must go outside during these storms all the time, right?"

The dog whined, but followed his owner when she made her way down the snow-covered steps. She sank up to her thigh with each step, but fought her way through the drifts and turned left when she thought she'd passed the buried fence. Like Janet, Sam lived close to Cheyenne Mountain, only about five minutes by car.

Bowing her head against the sharp wind buffeting her, Cassandra struggled to keep her footing. When she had bent nearly double and felt frozen stiff from the cold, she dared a glance back at Sam's house. A sob broke loose and was lost on the wind. She had come no further than the intersection four houses down. Homer tugged on his leash, trying to get her to return.

"No!" she wailed at her dog. "I have to get to the SGC!"

She had hardly made it halfway across the intersection – or where she estimated it was beneath the snow – when bright headlights cut through the swirling snow. Next moment, red and blue lights began flashing. Cassandra sank to her knees, hardly feeling the cold seep into her jeans. The police officer climbed out of his truck with a heavy flashlight in hand.

"I'm a police officer. My name is Jess Copeland. Let's get you into the truck," he shouted over the wind. A pair of strong arms lifted Cassandra into the hot truck cab where burning heat blasted out of the dashboard. Homer leapt up after her and settled on the floor between her knees. "Can you tell me what you think you're doing, young lady? It's downright dangerous to be out in this weather."

"I – I didn't know," she said, her teeth chattering. "I've only b – been here for two months. I was tr – trying to get to my mom. S – She's stuck at w – work, and I was sc – scared."

The officer pulled the balaclava off and stared down at her with kind, but stern brown eyes beneath thick black eyebrows. "All right. I'll take you to her workplace, but I want to speak to her about this, and I want you to promise you'll never do something like this again."

Cassandra nodded and extended her hands to get the full warmth from the truck's heater. Officer Copeland put the truck into drive and rolled slowly down the street to let the snow chains on his tires grip the powder as well as they could.

"Where does your mom work?"

The girl did a double take. Had she said "mom"? It upset her to think she had called someone other than her mother by that name, and for a minute, it disconcerted her so badly she forgot all the lectures the Air Force had given her about the kinds of information she could never talk about to people they called civilians.

"Cheyenne Mountain."

The police officer sighed. "So I suppose I'll only get as far as talking to her ombudsman, if I even get that far. Are you sure they'll allow children in NORAD?"

As soon as he asked, she realized she'd said something she wasn't supposed to. If asked, she was meant to say that Janet worked at the Air Force Academy Hospital. She hoped no one got angry at her for the mistake, but she didn't know how to answer Officer Copeland's question.

"Umm, I don't know. I guess she'll have to ask her CO."

Fifteen minutes later, the truck rolled to a stop at the security checkpoint in front of Cheyenne Mountain. He showed his badge and explained the situation. The guard peered in through the open window skeptically, and Cassandra fumbled in her pocket for the ID tag the military had issued her two months ago.

"Please, Sergeant. I need you to call General Hammond and tell him I'm here."

The Sergeant went to do just that, although he probably didn't know anyone named General Hammond worked in the mountain. He would talk to the NORAD commander, who would talk to General Hammond.

"I thought I brought you here for your mom," Officer Copeland said suspiciously.

Cassandra felt caught in a web of mistakes, but she was saved from inventing an excuse when the Sergeant opened the passenger side door and lifted her down. Homer jumped out after her and followed at her heels. Another Sergeant had come out of the guard shack and instructed the police officer to turn back.

"You've got friends in high places, young lady," her Sergeant escort said. "Dad? Grandpa?"

"Sort of," she said.

The Sergeant saw her into the back of a black car, and a driver pulled onto the plowed road and drove into the tunnel entrance of Cheyenne Mountain. She craned her neck to look out the back window and saw Officer Copeland hadn't left yet. She hoped he didn't argue too much and get into trouble.

A Sergeant from the SGC waited for Cassandra and escorted her down two elevators to the SGC. He stole frequent sidelong glances at Homer, unsure if he should allow a dog into the facility, but since no one had mentioned a dog, General Hammond hadn't given any specific orders about it. The Sergeant knocked on a door bearing the General's name and two stars.

"Come!"

Cassandra walked into the office with a suitably sheepish demeanor. Homer woofed excitedly at the General and earned a reproach stare for it. Tessa's grandfather motioned for Cassandra to take a seat in one of the chairs across from his desk.

"Are you all right, Cassie?" he asked kindly.

"Yes, sir."

A smile crossed his mouth. "You don't have to call me "sir" unless we're pretending you're a Captain. I thought you were staying with my granddaughters. Dr. Fraiser said it was all arranged. If I had known you were alone during this storm, I would have sent someone to take you over there."

"It was, but I thought it would be okay to stay at Sam's alone. But then the power went out and the phones died and Sam was late."

The General came around his desk and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "You're safe here now, Cassie. SG-1 dialed in an hour ago to say they need to stay off world for another day, and Dr. Fraiser's medical team has a scheduled check-in in a few hours. Why don't we get you some guest quarters ready?"

Only after she settled into the bare room did Cassandra realize she had missed whatever holiday tradition had been planned for that day because everyone had been off world. She decided that snowstorms would have to count as a tradition. Instead of feeling sad she had shared it with no one, she felt grateful knowing that they were returning to her soon.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> I like to answer questions submitted in reviews in a place where everyone can see the answers. PMs are great, but if one reader has a question about a story, then probably others have the same question too. If you're interested in finding out some tidbits about the story or my thought process as I wrote it, you can check out the Q&A on my tumblr. Also feel free to use the Ask on tumblr (anonymous asks are enabled) to leave me more questions. I answer everything! I'll try to remember to leave a note when I update with more questions. You can see my tumblr here (remove spaces): arainymonday. tumblr. com /tagged/questions-about-i-heard-the-bells-on-christmas-day


	12. Christmas Movies

**DECEMBER 12**

"**Christmas Movies"**

Cassandra was allowed to move around freely in the SGC as long as she stayed out of the way and didn't come too near restricted areas. She mostly spent time in her guest quarters or in the recreation room reading or painting. The constant wailing klaxons and announcements shouted through the intercom ceased to alarm her after the first few hours, though the worry never quite went away. She stayed clear of the infirmary and the room she had stayed in two months ago, but the SGC reminded her more of the people she loved than the ones she had lost.

The SGC ran on a generator, but the power remained out in Colorado Springs. When Cassandra took Homer to the surface to relieve himself, she found the worst of the snowstorm had passed, but the dark city lay buried under feet of snow still. SG teams returning through the gate elected to stay in their base quarters rather than risking the roads.

Janet's off world medical team reported in as scheduled, but they were nowhere near completing their mission. General Hammond did not tell Janet about Cassandra because he needed the doctor to focus on her mission, not worry about her foster daughter.

"What were you thinking?" a familiar voice shouted.

Cassandra started and nearly dropped the book on Ancient Egypt she'd borrowed from Daniel's lab. Jack stood over her chair in the recreation room looking livid. Sam and Daniel trailed in after the colonel looking worried, but otherwise friendly. Jack had never so much as raised his voice to her before. Shock more than anything else made her lower lip tremble, but she bit down on it to keep from crying.

"You could have died!" Jack continued. "There was a freeze warning in effect and near white out conditions. Why would you leave a perfectly safe place to walk through a blizzard?"

"I didn't know it wasn't safe! I thought … I thought I might be alone again. All the stuff in the house stopped working, and Sam didn't come home when she was supposed to, so I left to find out what happened."

"That wasn't smart," the colonel announced.

Cassandra jumped to her feet and stood as tall as her short frame could stretch. "That was brave," she argued. "I was afraid, but I didn't wait to have to be rescued again."

"Jack," Daniel called, in a leading voice.

The colonel didn't need the warning, however; the bluster had already left him. He crouched down to Cassandra's level. "What happened on Hanka will never happen on Earth. The SGC would know right away what was happening, and all of our doctors would fight to stop it. You're safe here, Cassie. Trust me on that."

The girl nodded. "I do, Jack."

"We have some ground to make up," Daniel said from by the door. "The lovely inhabitants of P3J-111 kept us longer than expected, so we missed our big plans for yesterday, but I think now is the perfect time for a Christmas movie marathon."

"Lovely?" Jack demanded. "Lovely? That's how you'd describe those … people."

"Well, sir, they were quite fascinating in their own way," Sam said. "But a nice, normal movie marathon sounds nice."

"Yes, with people who have the right number of limbs and eyes."

The base movie collection had very few Christmas films, but luckily Jack had brought a bag full of VHS tapes to lend to Janet. Within half an hour, Cassandra settled on the floor in front of the TV leaning against the couch between Daniel and Teal'c's legs. Sam joined her on the floor with a bowl of buttery popcorn and a pitcher of fruit punch Kool-Aid from the mess hall."

"Mmm, childhood in a glass," Jack commented as he pushed the tape into the VCR.

As the blue FBI warning played, the popcorn bowl made its way around. When the opening scene began, Cassandra found herself caught up in the world of _White Christmas_. She hardly noticed when Homer's sniffing nose descended into the popcorn bowl and her dog started to inhale her snack.

The movie was different than any she'd seen before. The story unfolded slower than most. She decided that she liked this kind of movie more than any she'd seen in the theater.

"This film was very strange," Teal'c said as the credits rolled. "Do people on your world frequently dance and sing in a rehearsed fashion in the middle of conversations?"

"Movies aren't supposed to be realistic," Daniel said. While Sam put in another movie, the archeologist explained about artistic vision and creative license.

"Except _Star Wars_. That's realistic," Jack added unhelpfully.

"It thought it was beautiful," Cassandra said.

"I thought we'd watch _A Christmas Story_ next since the Colonel wouldn't stop talking about it on our last mission, but if you like old movies we can see _It's A Wonderful Life_ instead."

They agreed to watch the old black and white film, but Jack said Cassandra had to watch _A Christmas Story_ – it was another Earth rule – and she agreed to see it next.

They hadn't gotten far into _It's A Wonderful Life_ when the klaxons came to life and Sergeant Harriman announced an unscheduled off world activation. Jack and Sam went to check it out, but Daniel and Teal'c stayed with Cassandra.

Not ten minutes later, Janet burst into the recreation room looking tired in crumbled fatigues. "Oh, Cass! General Hammond and Colonel O'Neill explained everything. Oh, sweetheart, I'm so sorry." She wrapped Cassandra in a tight hug and smoothed down her hair.

"I'm okay, Janet. I got picked up by the police, and then General Hammond said I could stay here."

The doctor pulled back and observed her foster daughter carefully while Cary Grant walked across the TV screen. From the second the General had said Cassandra was in the SGC, Janet had expected to find the girl in hysterics or near catatonic again. The facility must hold nothing but bad memories for her. But instead Cassandra seemed well adjusted and happy. She searched for any sign of concealment, but the girl was too open and honest for that.

"We're okay, Janet," Daniel said, casting her a significant look. "We're all doing just fine."

Satisfied with the archeologist's assessment, she climbed to her feet again. "In that case, I'm going to take a shower and debrief General Hammond. I'll be back in an hour or so to watch movies."

"Negative, doc." Jack and Sam returned to the room and their seats. "Then you're going to get some shut-eye. Sergeant Paxton said you've been up for 72 hours already."

"But, sir – "

"It's a movie marathon. If you sleep for a few hours, we'll still be watching movies when you wake up."

"Sir – "

"That's an order, _Captain_."

With Janet shuffled off to shower, debrief, and sleep, the movie played on in relative peace.

A few personnel stuck their heads in and were invited to join the marathon every half hour or so. By the time Janet rose from her nap six hours later, the audience had grown exponentially with base personnel off duty but snowed in. A robust game of "quote the movie" drowned out the dialogue of _A Christmas Story_ until Jack ordered everyone to "shut it" so Cassandra and Teal'c could enjoy the movie.

"Now I see why the mess was empty."

Janet took a seat on the floor next to Cassandra. She had brought a bowl of snacks healthier than the butter-soaked popcorn circulating in half a dozen bowls. Living with a doctor for two months had made Cassandra accustomed to fruit and vegetable snacks. She didn't complain at having her popcorn swapped out for grapes.

"You're just in time for _A Charlie Brown Christmas_," Cassandra said excitedly.

Janet doubted Cassandra knew who Charlie Brown was, but the lively atmosphere had clearly worked its magic on her. Homer too enjoyed the crowd. He sat next to Sergeant Harriman thumping his tail on the ground as the man scratched his ears. All the attention was going to spoil him even more than he already was.

Janet thought to ask Cassandra one more time if she was truly all right after what had happened during the snowstorm and coming back to the SGC for the first time. She looked over and saw on the girl's face unadulterated delight. It was all the answer she needed.


	13. Sledding

**DECEMBER 13**

"**Sledding"**

Although they were unable to see it happen from the depths of Cheyenne Mountain, the weather cleared overnight and snowplows made it through all the city streets. The morning shift personnel informed the night shift and everyone stranded on base. Personnel fled from the parking lots down the narrow access road into the city.

Schools were back in session, so Janet dropped Cassandra off in front of the high school at 7:45 on the way home.

"We've got something good planned for tonight thanks to the snowstorm: sledding."

Janet said goodbye, and Cassandra went into school. All her friends wanted to talk about their two school-free days, although no one seemed to have enjoyed their days much. They were still excited about their time off, but equally ready to complain.

"I got stuck playing Scrabble with my granna."

"I had to do homework the whole time."

Cassandra wondered if moaning about a good thing was required, but she couldn't find any way to make the movie marathon sound like a bad thing. Instead, she told them simply, "I had a Christmas movie marathon."

"How?" Sharon demanded. "No one had power."

"We, umm, have a generator."

'Lucky!" they chorused.

After a day of school during which the students found it very difficult to focus, the art team met in Miss Bradley's classroom to continue making sets and props for the play. Jordan's dad volunteered his time to build some of the set pieces, and even Miss Bradley sat down at the desks to help with some of the painting. They had lost a lot of work time to the snowstorm, and everyone set to their tasks diligently to get the sets built.

Miss Baker, the home economics teacher, brought in an enormous black backdrop that the choir and band teachers wanted silver snowflakes sewn onto. The theater tech students had found an additional supply of Christmas props stored under the old stage (now the drama classroom) and took Cassandra to inspect them.

It was the most productive work time they'd spent on the set so far, and with just seven days to go before the winter festival, that was very welcomed news.

"Monday we'll start to take these sets and props onto the stage so the cast and stage crew can practice moving them on and off stage and acting around them. That means we only have tomorrow night and Saturday to finish everything," Miss Bradley said before dismissing the students for the night.

Cassandra left the art classroom and went to find Tessa at the stage. Miss Baker was busy measuring and pinning students into their costumes and noting any alterations that needed to be made. Her three wardrobe helpers accepted armfuls of clothes as their peers wriggled out of robes and overcoats.

"Did you like my costume?" Tessa asked. The two girls hurried through the corridors to collect their bags from their lockers and went out front to meet Mrs. Hammond.

"I didn't see it. I got there after you'd given it to Holly."

"Well, it's really pretty. The Ghost of Christmas Past is a supposed to be a child, so Holly – she's in charge of wardrobe like you're in charge of sets – wants me to wear an old fashioned baby doll dress. It's white and had lots of ruffles. She even gave me a parasol!"

The girls giggled as they climbed into the back of the Hammond's minivan. Cassandra wanted to hear all about the other characters' costumes to make sure they fit with the historical sets and props the art team had put together. By the time Mrs. Hammond parked in front of Cassandra's house, she felt really hopeful and excited for dress rehearsals starting Monday.

Homer's elated barks announced Jack's arrival half an hour later before he even had a chance to knock. With the dinner dishes rinsed and in the dishwasher, Cassandra sprinted through the house and dove for the door. She had been looking forwarding to sledding – something she had seen in the Christmas movies – all day.

"Are you ready for the most fun you've ever had?" Jack asked.

Cassandra doubted anything could be as fun as the "off world" snowball fight, but she answered with an enthusiastic, "Yeah!" Janet and Cassandra wrapped up in their warmest winter clothes against the frosty temperatures outside and followed Jack to his truck. Homer was allowed to come along because the colonel thought her dog would enjoy sledding too.

He drove to the golf course on the other side of town. It had been snowed over for weeks, but even the drifts couldn't flatten the manmade hills and valleys of the course. The owner, a retired Air Force Colonel, opened the golf course for sledding and tobogganing every year there was enough snow to make sure his grass wouldn't be ruined. On sunny days when the weather wasn't too harsh, children in their colorful winter clothes zoomed down the hills from the first to eighteenth hole.

"We're going to the back nine," Jack announced. "It's a long walk, but the hills are better, and it's less crowded."

He was right about all of it. Being Air Force officers in top shape, Jack and Janet didn't have trouble tramping through the snow. Cassandra's breaths came in cloudy puffs, however, and her short legs ached from fighting her way through the deep snow. The distant hills, however, were coated with fresh snow instead of the worked ruts made by previous sleds.

Jack had brought two kinds of sleds from the bed of his truck. One was bright baby blue, rectangular in shape with a curved up front. The other was vivid orange, round as a saucer, and much lighter on the snow. He indicated that she should try the baby blue sled first.

"Doctor," the colonel said, pointing at the seat behind Cassandra. At Janet's dubious look, he added, "What did you think we were going to do? Birdwatch?"

Janet lowered herself onto the sled and placed her arms on either side of the girl to grip the curved up front. Cassandra's gloved fingers already held the plastic in a death squeeze, and an eager nervousness sent her heart racing. The girl felt the sled begin to slide forward and craned her neck to see that Jack had his hands on Janet's back and was pushing them over the hill ridge. The sled tottered on the edge for a moment, then tipped and sailed down the hill.

Icy cold wind bit into Cassandra's face and howled in her ears. Her stomach seemed to rise, and she felt oddly buoyant as she careened down the hill. Tears formed in her eyes from the harsh wind, but the girl released a happy whoop as the sled gained speed. Homer barked frantically and raced down the hill, but even his powerful legs couldn't keep up with the sled.

It was over too soon. They reached the bottom of the hill, and the sled lost momentum. Behind her, Janet was laughing wildly. Loyal and excitable as always, Homer had refused to give up. He crashed into Cassandra, knocking her off the sled, and began licking her face.

"I haven't done that since I was your age, Cassie. Let's go again!" The doctor grabbed the sled's lead and fought her way back up the hill. The girl followed, smiling widely, while Homer barked and leapt around hysterically.

Cassandra took another run with Janet – Homer fairly howled with frustration that he couldn't keep up – and then one with Jack. His weight slowed down the sled, but his wicked sense of humor meant he steered the sled so that they tipped over at the bottom of the hill "because that's what's _supposed_ to happen."

On the fourth run, Cassandra went by herself on the light plastic saucer-shaped sled. Jack gave her a hearty push down the hill, and she zoomed down the hill at a breakneck pace. The round sled spun on the snow so that she sometimes saw Jack and Janet retreating and sometimes the frozen over water hazard approaching. At the bottom of the hill, the sled hit a snow bank and sent Cassandra flying head over heels. She lay in the snow, unharmed and belly laughing, as Homer leapt into the drift after her.

"Cass! Cassie!" Janet shouted. The girl put one gloved hand into the air and waved. "I'm fine!"

Laughing so hard tears streamed from her eyes, Cassandra used Homer as a crutch to climb from the snow drift. She retrieved the sled capsized in the snow and began hauling it up the steady incline. When she slipped on an icy patch halfway up, she landed face down in the snow and eyelevel with the rim of the orange sled. Written in black marker was a name: _Charlie O'Neill_.

Her laughter faded as she contemplated the name. The sled didn't look old or very used, so she assumed Charlie was a kid her own age. She wondered why no one ever talked about him or why she hadn't met him yet. She felt a little hurt and jealous that Jack had another kid in his life besides her.

"Cass?"

She felt the skittering of snow along the frosty surface that told her Jack was coming down the hill to check on her. The girl pushed herself up by the arms and put on a big smile.

"I'm okay. Just slipped."

They stayed out on the golf course sledding until the sun began its descent. Every time Cassandra went down the hill, she had to stop herself from flipping the sled over and staring at Charlie O'Neill's name, but harder still was to not demand Jack tell her about him. She might not have asked about the mysterious boy, but Cassandra didn't stop wondering about him.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> A reviewer pointed out on the last chapter that _White Christmas_ is actually in color and not black and white like I have it written. Derp! Of course _White Christmas_ is in color. Let's pretend they watched _Miracle on 34th Street_ or _It's A Wonderful Life_.


	14. Lights

**DECEMBER 14**

"**Lights"**

The atmosphere in Cheyenne Mountain High School on Friday felt less excited than other weeks. The students had had two days off in the middle of the week, and so the weekend held fewer prospects for them. Coupled with the added responsibility of beginning to study for final exams and the increasingly frantic pace of preparing for the holidays, their weekends had been largely co-opted by the adults in their lives.

Cassandra said farewell to Tessa at the school buses and double checked their plans for Saturday. Mrs. Hammond would pick up Cassandra at nine o'clock to come to the school and finish the work for the winter festival. Sharon wanted to read through her lines on the ride home, so Cassandra obliged her. When the bus dropped her off, she saw Daniel's car in the driveway. Excited for their next tradition, she yanked the mail from the box and raced inside.

"Hi, Daniel!" she cried, kicking off her boots.

Homer barked an excited greeting and thundered through the house beside her. The living room was empty, so she expected Daniel and Janet were in the dining room. Instead, she found Teal'c in the kitchen holding a boiling pot of water over the red hot electric burner.

"Daniel Jackson has gone with Dr. Fraiser to inspect a collection of artifacts called arrowheads in the attic."

"Hello, Teal'c. Nice to see you again. Are you making lasagna?"

"It is a pleasure to see you again as well, Cassandra. I do not know how to prepare this dish, but Dr. Fraiser instructed me to remove the noodles from the stove at this time."

Cassandra trotted around the island into the kitchen and riffled through the cabinets beside the stove to produce a colander and place it in the sink. "Pour the lasagna noodles into the colander." Carefully, the Jaffa followed her instructions, and Cassandra turned off the stove. "Now we let them drain."

"This meal does not look appetizing," he said, observing the bleached white noodles.

"That's because it's not ready yet." The girl switched gears to things she found more fascinating than lasagna. "So what are we doing for our Christmas tradition tonight?"

"We will be engaging in an activity Daniel Jackson refers to as "seeing the lights," but I am unsure what this entails exactly. I had assumed these lights are similar to the ones Colonel O'Neill and myself hung around your house."

Cassandra nodded thoughtfully. "I see a bunch of lights in Cottonwood Creek Park whenever we drive by after dark. It's probably Christmas lights there we're going to see."

When Janet and Daniel came down from the attic, the archeologist held an old cigar box that jangled with stone arrowheads, and the doctor bore a politely incredulous expression. While Janet finished making dinner, and Cassandra explained to Teal'c how to make lasagna, Daniel chattered about the Native American populations in Colorado.

After dinner and the clean up, Janet left for a shift at the SGC. Daniel promised to see Cassandra safely settled at Sam's after seeing the lights and bid the doctor goodnight. The sun had gone behind the mountains, and a clear, crisp night settled over Colorado Springs.

"We can go see the lights if you two are ready," Daniel said, peering past his ghostly reflection in the window at the night sky.

On the car ride to Cottonwood Park, Daniel explained to Cassandra the history of Native Americans and the significance of the arrowheads Janet's father had collected in the old cigar box. Teal'c seemed similarly interested. It must have seemed ironic to them both that the Tau'ri had relocated their own populations in much the same way the Goa'uld had done to their people thousands of years before.

"So this is where all the lights come from," Cassandra breathed. She pressed her face against the glass and peered out at the light displays as Daniel pulled into line behind a row of cars and slowly rolled through the winding decorated lanes.

Strings of white lights wrapped around every pole, and the dazzling display of colored bulbs blinking on and off made sporadic rainbows on the windshield. They drove past the requisite snowmen, marching toy soldiers, candles, wreaths, and Christmas trees. Teal'c and Cassandra both complained vehemently about the homage to Santa Claus, but couldn't hide their curiosity about Rudolph's nose. The more dubious light displays – such as the giant Taj Mahal or prehistoric diorama – Daniel glossed over by giving history lessons. The nursery rhyme displays, especially Hickory Dickory Dock, delighted Cassandra who had not grown up hearing the tales.

Daniel parked at the walking trail, and they piled out of the car to meander along the narrow path leading around a manmade pond ringed with smaller light displays. Teal'c and Cassandra both paused and cocked their eyebrows curiously at a display Daniel recognized immediately.

"The Twelve Days of Christmas," he said. "It begins here, and the next eleven displays follow the song. You see, in earlier centuries, Christmas was a twelve day celebration and you gave gifts on every day of the celebration. The song is about the gifts a true love gives to his – or her – intended. This one is a partridge in a pear tree."

The archeologist watched his alien friends observe the display trying to interpret the meaning of the tree, fruit, and bird. At last, Cassandra asked for an explanation.

"What's a partridge?"

"It's a bird found on Earth. It's a kind of pheasant."

"What is a pear tree?" Teal'c inquired.

"A fruit tree. Haven't you had a pear, Teal'c? I'll make sure you try one. They're a great winter fruit."

"Is that not two gifts, Daniel Jackson?"

"Remember when we talked about creative license?"

The Jaffa nodded solemnly. "I see."

With Cassandra in the lead, they moved slowly onto the second display – two turtledoves – and again Daniel explained what the birds were and what they represented. He thought Cassandra and Teal'c understood the meaning of the song – he even sang a few bars – until they got to the third display: three French hens.

"That's a really strange gift," Cassandra said matter-of-factly. "I hope no one gives me three chickens for Christmas."

"There are many new and strange customs on your world, but the giving of avian species as gifts is perhaps the strangest I have yet heard of," Teal'c agreed. The girl nodded emphatically. "I too do not wish to receive fowl for Christmas."

Daniel shook his head. "No, no, no. Birds are not a traditional Christmas gifts. It's just part of the song. No one is going to give either of you chickens for Christmas." He suspected that if he ever mentioned this conversation to Jack, however, everyone would find themselves the owner of a chicken come Christmas morning.

"Uh, Daniel," the girl began hesitantly. "I know you're the cultural expert and all that, but … are you sure about that?"

She had reached the next station first and pointed an accusing finger at the fourth day of Christmas display: four calling birds. Daniel's chin dropped to his chest. He was starting to understand how Jack had been forced to admit Santa was a Goa'uld.

"Moving on!"

The next light display, the five golden rings, confirmed his assurances that birds were not traditional gifts. But then they passed the six geese a-laying and seven swans a-swimming. The archeologist charged past those stations and pretended not to hear Teal'c and Cassandra's speculation about which kinds of birds they expected to get for Christmas and if they could be released into the wild and survive.

If Daniel thought coming to the eight maids a-milking would make his life any easier, he was dead wrong. Teal'c frowned so deeply he started to look inhuman, and Cassandra's brow furrowed.

"Daniel Jackson, I must insist we return to the vehicle and leave this place. Your holiday traditions may seem to you special, but to us – " he glanced down at the girl to confirm she felt the same " – they are disturbing reminders of Goa'uld oppression. First we endured shrines to Santa Claus, but I will not celebrate the giving of slaves as gifts."

"What? No!" The archeologist wanted to scream in frustration. Really it was no wonder Jack had folded. "They're not slaves. They're physical representations of the eight beatitudes." That meant nothing to the aliens, so picked another tack. "Sometimes we give services as gifts, like massages or car washes. The people who do that have been paid up front. They're not slaves; they're service sector employees."

"Then the maids were paid for their work?" Teal'c asked. Daniel wanted to retort that the maids were an intangible idea, but resigned, he only nodded. "Very well. We may proceed."

While Teal'c and Cassandra seemed much happier the rest of the time they strolled through the light displays arranged along the walking path, Daniel felt his holiday tradition had been a complete failure. The Goa'uld used the Jaffa as symbols of their power, but the Jaffa themselves thought very concretely. Still a child, and in an alien environment, Cassandra perceived the world in much the same way.

"Daniel?" She came galloping down the path and grabbed his hand. "Come on, you've got to see this!"

She dragged him down the path to yet another display wholly inappropriate to a Christmas light show: an Old West showdown complete with clock striking noon. The archeologist turned his eyes skyward and couldn't hold back his laughter.

"So you're having fun, Cassie?" The girl nodded vigorously. "Well, that's the important thing."

"Aren't you having fun, Daniel?"

"I don't think I've really explained Christmas well to you and Teal'c. I'm a scholar, a teacher. That's what I'm supposed to be the best at doing."

The girl considered for a minute. "No one has really even tried to explain Christmas to us. I read a lot, Daniel, so I know you've been leaving things out. This isn't a winter celebration like what we had on Hanka; Christmas is part of your Earth religion."

"A few of them, yes," he admitted with a grimace. "I'm sorry, Cassie, we should have been more upfront about that. And we should have known you would read everything you could about Christmas." He beamed at her approvingly. "Christmas did start as a religious celebration, but that's not what it is for everybody. I think we were all afraid you would refuse if you knew Christmas had religious connotations for some people, and we wanted you to enjoy the season like we all do."

"I enjoy learning," she reminded Daniel.

"Then I promise to teach you everything I know about mid-winter religious celebrations. It's a fascinating history, actually. But I have to warn you, Cassie, some Goa'uld assumed the identity of the ancient gods honored at mid-winter. In fact, I'm betting at least one will sound very familiar to you considering what part of Earth your people were taken from and when. You may have even celebrated it on Hanka in some variation."

"I think we did. At least, I read about one that sounded really familiar." She went quiet for a few moments, and then said with steely resolve, "But I want to learn everything about Earth."

He put a reassuring hand on the girl's shoulder and promised, "Then I'll teach you."


	15. Religion

**DECEMBER 15**

"**Religion"**

At nine o'clock on Saturday morning, Cassandra raced out the front door to climb into the back of the Hammond's van with Tessa and Kayla. The two older girls got out of the van at the drop off point for Cheyenne Mountain High School while Kayla stayed with her mother for a day of Christmas shopping.

"Good luck," Cassandra muttered grimly on her way out.

Together, the girls made their way through the nearly deserted halls of their school to the auditorium in the back of the school where all the students part of the winter festival were congregating for the ten o'clock start time. They sat in clusters chatting about their plans for the rest of the day or rehashing the rumors shared at sleepovers from Friday night or rehearsing their lines. Cassandra wisely said nothing about her Friday night or plans for later in the afternoon.

Miss Bradley took the art students to her classroom at ten o'clock to finish the sets and props decoration. They worked diligently with Usher's _My Way _playing in the background, thus proving once and for all that Miss Bradley was the coolest teacher ever. They took a lunch break at noon, and then came back to the art until four o'clock when parents began arriving to pick up their children.

Cassandra was pleased with the work the art team had done considering they had to work mostly with old pieces from previous years' plays. After the paint dried over the weekend, they would load the sets onto trolleys and roll it all down onto the stage for rehearsals starting on Monday.

"Good work, everyone. Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and I'll see you all on Monday," the art teacher said warmly. "Cassandra, can I see you for a moment?"

As the four others on the art team departed the classroom, Cassandra hung back. She had come to consider being held back by the teacher a potentially dangerous thing as most of her classmates did, and she approached the desk nervously.

"We're printing up the programs for the winter festival this week. Everyone who helped will get a mention at the end of the program, but since you were the art team leader, we're putting your name in the main credits along with the cast and crew. I have a proof copy that I'm supposed to show you so you can check your name and verify that we've spelled it right."

Miss Bradley took a red and silver program the size of a textbook, but much thinner, from the top drawer of her desk. The cover showed field of falling snowflakes and bore the generic title: _Cheyenne Mountain High School Winter Festival 1997_. Cassandra flipped through the first pages sharing the history of the festival and a summary of _A Christmas Carol_. Many students in the play, choir, and band had already initialed their entries. Her eyes scanned the list of crew until she found the line reading: SET DESIGNER … Cassandra Senna.

A lump formed in her throat seeing the name in black and white in a program that hundreds of people would see, maybe even keep in memory boxes for years to come. Despite millions of light-years between Hanka and Earth, she realized maybe for the first time that she had not left behind everything of her former life when she'd come through the Stargate. Perhaps the most significant legacy of her home world resided in a single word attached to the end of her name.

Senna, the Hankan word for farmer and most common surname on the agrarian planet.

With a trembling hand, Cassandra printed CS next to the entry.

During the car ride back to her house, Cassandra was silent and distracted. No one noticed because of Kayla's constant stream of commentary about Santa Claus and the presents she asked for. Cassandra said goodbye, climbed out of the van, and was halfway up the driveway before she noticed Daniel's car and remembered he'd promised to teach her about Earth religious traditions.

Homer lay stretched across the couch with one paw twitching as he dreamed of chasing cars, and for once Cassandra came home to silence instead of incessant barking. She padded across the living room being careful not to rouse her dog. She heard voices in the kitchen and went to say hello to Daniel.

"You had no right, Daniel," Janet said hotly.

"She asked me if I would teach her. What was I supposed to say?" the archeologist retorted.

"No!"

"How can that be your answer? We're scientists; we value curiosity and learning. The Goa'uld keep their worlds in ignorance, and yet against all odds, Cassie is still inquisitive. We shouldn't try to stifle that; we should encourage it."

"And I do, when the subject is appropriate. I don't think bringing up religion two months after she finds out a parasite posing as a god killed every person she's ever known is appropriate."

"I'm not a missionary, Janet. I'm a teacher. This is a condensed Religious Studies course, not a Come to Jesus backyard revival."

Cassandra shrank back from the kitchen door feeling small and guilty. She wished she hadn't said anything about what she'd guessed. She didn't want Janet and Daniel to fight over her. They might decide she was bad for their friendship or they might stop being friends altogether. What would happen to her, if they blamed her for that?

The low murmur of voices continued as she went back into the living room and squeezed herself onto the couch by Homer's head. The jostling cushion roused her dog from his nap. Seeing her threw him into a frenzy. The frantic barking drew Janet and Daniel's attention, and they wandered out of the kitchen a few moments later.

"Hello, Cassie," Daniel said, with a smile. "How was the set-building?"

"We finished everything, but the paint has to dry over the weekend," she answered.

The girl glanced nervously between Janet and Daniel, but they didn't look mad at each other or mad at her. At five o'clock, Janet made her apologies and went to bed. She had worked until two o'clock at the SGC and hadn't slept the night before.

"So, should we begin?"

Daniel looked eager as he lifted a large bag from beside the couch and joined Cassandra and Homer on the floor. The girl hesitated giving an answer while he removed a number of curious objects: a wooden toy with foreign symbols on the sides, a model of a small barn, a golden sun disc, a stone column, and a cloth streamer with triangle flags. Next he removed a stack of books, and from the titles on the spine, she could see they covered mid-winter traditions from at least nine different Earth religions.

"Daniel," she began suddenly, "if Janet doesn't want me to learn this …."

The archeologist grimaced. "You heard that, huh? She has reasons, Cassie, that I don't disagree with. But I think it's important you learn everything you can about Earth, and so does she. If you don't learn these things that kids your age already know, it's going to be very, very hard for you later on."

"Okay, if she doesn't mind."

"I haven't known Janet long, but I get the feeling she wouldn't hesitate to tell someone what she really thinks or go to sleep if something she didn't agree with was happening in her house. I think we're okay."

Satisfied, Cassandra settled with her back against the couch and waited for Daniel to begin his lesson. She knew it would be interesting because he knew so much about world cultures, and the items spread over the living room floor had her very curious.

"I'll start with the most popular celebration here in the United States: Christmas." He picked up the model of the barn and pointed to an infant lying in a bed of straw.

For the next several hours, Cassandra listed raptly while Daniel explained all the different faiths people on Earth followed. It stunned her to think that one planet could believe so many different things about the gods and not fall to pieces. She listened carefully and found many similarities to the solstice celebration on Hanka, especially in the Greek Lenaia and Indian Makara Sankranti.

Daniel was a very hands-on teacher. They spun a dradle, decorated a bodhi tree, tied the sun to the Inthihuatana, and made tangyuan in boiling water. As they did each of these traditions, they talked about the history of Earth and how one celebration had transformed into another because of conquest and trade.

Cassandra paused with a tangyuan halfway to her mouth. "I think the same thing happened on Hanka."

The archeologist shifted excitedly in his seat. "I've theorized that Nirrti didn't actually take your people from Earth. That was probably another Goa'uld who she later defeated and then claimed Hanka as her territory. If she had, then I assume you would have at least some Indian physical characteristics, but you don't."

"One of the traditions I recognized was Indian, but the other was Greek."

Daniel's smile slipped a bit, and high color flushed in his cheeks. Cassandra wondered why Lenaia would make him embarrassed when it was just a bunch of women out in the forest around a campfire. She would read more about it later, but didn't ask now.

"I'd love to see what your solstice traditions were like," he said at last. "That is, if men are allowed to see."

The girl cocked her head to the side and furrowed her brow. "Why wouldn't they be allowed? I'll show you our ceremony, but we have to wait until the shortest day of the year."

"That's in about a week. I'll make sure we're on Earth. Do I need to do anything special to prepare? Drink a lot of wine? Buy a goat?"

A laugh escaped her lips, but she realized a minute later he had been completely serious. "No. We just need a log from a fruit tree, sweet rolls, and red string. On Hanka a man was named king for a day and tied to tree for the whole celebration."

"Oh, boy," Daniel muttered.

"But I don't think you or Jack or Teal'c would like it. My dad – " The girl looked down at her hands and blinked rapidly against the sudden tears. "He said it wasn't very comfortable."

A comforting arm wrapped around her shoulders, and Cassandra leaned into Daniel's solid presence. When she had her emotions under control, she pulled away, sniffling slightly, and he passed her a Kleenex.

"Any other traditions to talk about?" she asked, putting on a brave face. The compassion in Daniel's eyes made her want to cry again, so she picked up another tangyuan and forced herself to take a bite.

"Just one. Janet wanted me to explain about Santa Claus, or more precisely St. Nicholas. As an archeologist, I can't talk about St. Nicholas without mentioning the Norse gods, especially Odin, and that will bring me to the Asgard and why Santa Claus is definitely not a Goa'uld."

"Okay," Cassandra said. "Are you going to explain about giving birds and people as Christmas presents too?"

Daniel's chin dropped to his chest, and it was Cassandra's turn to put a reassuring arm around his shoulders.


	16. Mistletoe

**DECEMBER 16**

"**Mistletoe"**

An emergency situation on a friendly planet called away SG-1 on Sunday, and Janet had a shift at the SGC. Cassandra might have been content to stay home and play with Homer, but she had done all of her homework and a strong wind and heavy snowfall made being outside for too long uncomfortable. She called Tessa, and her best friend immediately invited her over.

Covered head to toe in winter gear, Cassandra marched the five blocks to the Hammond's house with the wind at her back. When Mr. Hammond opened the door and pulled her inside, she felt burning needles shoot through her from the pleasant heat.

"You girls," Mr. Hammond chided. "Independence is good, in the right quantity. Next time you ask us to pick you up!"

Tessa's father looked exactly like General Hammond, with a genial round face and kind eyes, but with vibrant red hair. Cassandra had met him only twice before, both times at the General's house. She liked him a lot, even though he made bad jokes all the time. Mrs. Hammond she knew better. She was a willowy woman with black hair and a very soft voice, except when Tessa or Kayla did something wrong.

"Yes, sir," Cassandra promised.

Mr. Hammond did a double take at the "sir" and laughed. "I forgot you spent more time around my dad. There's no need to call me sir, Cassie."

"Yes, sir," she said, running up the stairs to Tessa's room. She heard Mr. and Mrs. Hammond chortling downstairs.

In her best friend's room, she found Tessa yelling at her closet door. Apparently, Kayla had barricaded herself inside for some reason and refused to come out. The girl threw up her hands, marched across the room, and dragged a chair from her vanity over to the closet.

"One more chance, Kayla, or you won't get out of there until you're a hundred!" When her little sister still refused to come out, Tessa slid the chair under the doorknob. "Have it your way! Oh, Cassie!"

"Hi, Tessa," she said, staring at the closet door. "Umm, what's Kayla doing?"

"Is that Cassie?" a muffled voice asked. Tessa's little sister immediately began trying to open the door, but found it barred, which only made her jangle the doorknob with greater insistence. Fifteen seconds later, she was screaming at her sister through the door.

"She thinks I hid love notes from Ravi Lahiri in my closet and wants to read them. Be glad Dr. Fraiser doesn't have any other children or you'd have to deal with this too," Tessa said, sounding very put upon. "So what should we do today?"

Cassandra hesitated, then walked over to the closet and released Kayla from her prison. The little girl burst out of the line of clothes holding a plastic coat hanger like a sword. Her mouth formed a furious line, and she waved the plastic around dramatically.

"You – will – _pay_!" With that vaguely ominous threat, she stomped out of the room.

"Give me my coat hanger back!" Tessa shouted.

Cassandra took a seat on the bed while Tessa pointlessly chased her little sister around the upstairs until Mr. Hammond bellowed for them to stop making a racket. A minute later, she heard Kayla's door slam (Mr. Hammond shouted again), and then Tessa returned victoriously with coat hanger in hand.

"So … what should we do today?" Tessa asked again.

She riffled through her CD collection and put a Backstreet Boys album into the CD player before stretching out on her bed with the December issue of _Seventeen_ magazine. After taking a few of the quizzes in the magazine, they decided to practice Tessa's lines from _A Christmas Carol_. Cassandra failed to play a convincing Scrooge, but Tessa was a wonderful actress.

"Oh!" Tessa cried. "Holiday traditions!"

She dropped the script onto her desk and dove across her bed to pick up the pink Hello Kitty notebook on the floor. She flipped through the pages until she came to a long list of Christmas traditions printed in her neat handwriting.

"I saw the snowmen in front of your house," she said. "By the way, was one of those meant to be my grandpa?"

Cassandra smiled weakly and said by way of explanation, "Jack's idea."

Together, they went through the list and whittled it down to the traditions Cassandra hadn't done or knew weren't planned for later in the month. With the smaller list in hand, Tessa flashed a mischievous smile.

"I have the perfect tradition."

The girls hurried down the hallway, giggling at nothing in particular, and were joined by Kayla as they passed her door. Tessa looked like she was about to send her away, but Cassandra grabbed the younger sister's hand and pulled her along. Kayla was younger, but she could be fun sometimes.

At the bottom of the stairs, Tessa climbed onto the railing and pulled a sprig of green leaves from the place over the door. It had been speared on a thumbtack and pinned to the wall. Tessa twirled it around, grinning while Kayla giggled.

"Mistletoe. If you walk under it with a boy, he had to kiss you. Watch."

Tessa raced across the living room and jumped onto the back of the couch where Mr. and Mrs. Hammond sat watching television. Their eyes rolled up to take in the mistletoe hovering overhead, and then with a laugh, they kissed briefly.

"You're not a monkey, Tessa. Stop climbing on everything," Mrs. Hammond directed softly. The girl got down from the couch, smiling sheepishly at her mother.

The three girls raced upstairs with the mistletoe still in hand and collapsed onto Tessa's bed. Cassandra took the leaves and examined it closely. The planet was very ugly and not likely to inspire romance, but it was clearly a real tradition.

"So if I hold this above anyone, they have to kiss?" she asked. "Can I take this home? Or will your parents mind?"

Tessa shook her head. "We have lots of mistletoe in the house."

The girls spent the rest of the day playing board games, and Mr. Hammond drove Cassandra home after dinner. Janet had left a message on the answering machine saying she had to go into surgery and would be late, but that Sam would be coming to pick her up at seven o'clock. Before she packed, the girl pinned the mistletoe above the door so everyone who came over could see the holiday tradition Tessa had taught her.

A little after seven, headlights cut a path through the early darkness and Sam knocked on the door. Cassandra let her in, but forgot Homer's leash and had to run to the back porch before they could leave. When the girl returned, she saw Jack had come too. His ankle was in an air cast, and he looked thoroughly displeased at having a chauffeur.

"Friendly planet my …," he trailed off when he saw Cassandra had come back into the room.

"It's just bruised, sir. Janet said to keep off it for two or three days, and you'll be fine."

The girl looked from the Colonel to the Captain, surprise turning into wicked delight. They stood in the doorway, snowy shoes dripping on to the rug. Her eyes flicked up to the wall above the doorway, and a beat later, they looked the same way. Their eyes widened when they saw the ugly green plant, and they froze for a good five seconds. Then, in unison, they took a step away from each other.

Cassandra frowned and said accusingly, "That's not what you're supposed to do under mistletoe."

"What you're supposed to do under mistletoe is against regulations," Jack retorted. "Who taught you about that anyway?" He turned to Sam. "If it was Daniel, so help me, I'll confiscate all his Benadryl and send him to a planet full of dandelion puffs."

Sam tried to hide her amusement, but didn't quite manage. "I'm sure that would put him in line. He's probably never gone without Benadryl before. I'm sure the pharmacies on Abydos have aisle after aisle of allergy medication."

"Tessa taught me a Christmas tradition," Cassandra said.

"Maybe we should take this down," Sam said, moving to unpin the mistletoe from the wall.

"Ah!" Jack held up a hand. "I want to see Daniel standing under that thing first."

"Sir, Cassie just said it wasn't his idea."

"_And?_"

The Captain frowned and shifted her eyes in a close approximation of an eye roll. "Come on, Cassie, we should get Colonel O'Neill home before he starts hatching plans that involve hidden cameras and out-of-work game show hosts."


	17. Caroling

**DECEMBER 17**

"**Caroling"**

Monday began dress rehearsals for the winter program. After classes released for the day, Cassandra went to the art room to supervise moving the set pieces and boxes of props down to the stage. Risers had been placed on the left side of the stage for the choir, and a semi-circle of black chairs with music stands in front of each seat had been arranged on the right side for the band. At center stage, the cast of _A Christmas Carol_ gathered to speak with Mr. Owens before they began practicing their lines.

With the help of Miss Bradley and the stage crew, the first set rolled onto the stage in time for the cast to take their places. Whether or not it helped their acting, they clearly enjoyed sitting on benches and writing with quills over standing around with scripts in hand. There was little else for Cassandra to do except make sure the stage crew moved in the correct set during scene breaks and the right props went with it.

For the first time, she began to see how the choir, band, and drama department would all work together for the winter festival as the band played orchestral pieces and the choir sang melodic Christmas music when the lights went down to allow actors to move to new marks and crew to scuttle across the stage with fresh props and sets.

"You were really great," Cassandra told Tessa after Mr. Owens released them for the day.

"So were your sets, Cassie. It was so much better doing my scenes in Scrooge's bedroom and living rooms instead of staring at the empty stage."

The girls made their way through the school with a steady stream of their peers chattering excitedly about the upcoming program. The costumes would be ready the next day, and then Wednesday night would be a full dress rehearsal from start to finish.

It wasn't for several more hours and well after sunset until Daniel arrived to take Cassandra for another holiday tradition. The girl had had dinner, finished all of her homework, and was starting to wonder if SG-1 had been called off world. Janet didn't change shifts with Dr. Warner at nine o'clock like she was supposed, so she had been left alone and wondering what came next.

"You'll need to dress warmly," Daniel said.

He had done so himself, except that he wore strangely light gloves for a nippy night. When she made to pull on her thermal gloves, he suggested she wear a pair of light cotton knit gloves instead. She did as he said, but shoved her hands deep into her coat pockets as they went outside. The sky had opened up and released a dusting of snow that melted in the girl's hair and on her shoulders.

Daniel drove to the Colorado Springs campus of the University of Colorado and joined a cluster of professor types – alternately staid and fey – outside the library building. Several children Cassandra's age and younger regarded her and each other warily before moving away from their parents to form their own group some ways off.

"I haven't seen you here before," one boy said to Cassandra. "Is your dad a new professor here?"

"He's not my dad," she replied quickly. It upset her thinking anyone could take her dad's place. "And he's not a professor here. He's from … umm, the University of Chicago. Archeology."

"My mom too! I mean, archeology. I'm Chris, by the way. That man with my mom – Larry – isn't my real dad either."

With some common ground, Chris and Cassandra talked about archeology. The boy had been on several digs with his mother in Egypt, and Cassandra kept asking him so many questions he never got around to asking if she had been on digs with Daniel.

At seven o'clock, the group of professors had grown to twelve, and their children brought the total up to twenty. Daniel came to find Cassandra and handed her a booklet of sheet music like the band and choir used. He fell to the back of the crowd as they walked down the snowy sidewalk to the residential areas around the campus.

"We're going Christmas caroling."

"I saw that in movies," the girl said. "We're going to people's houses to sing for them, right? But I don't know very many carols."

"You're a quick study," he said, grinning. "Just read the words off the sheet and follow the melody. You probably know more than you think since every store and radio station is playing nothing but these songs."

The first house they stopped at looked like a winter postcard. The house was large and white with a long lane and snowy lawn glistening under dim lampposts erected along the sidewalk leading to the handsome cherry door. Daniel told her it was the university Chancellor's house, and this was the carolers' traditional first stop.

A man with white hair beneath a fedora and a deep baritone voice began the caroling with _Adeste Fideles_. At first, she mumbled along with everyone, trying to catch the melody and learn the words. Whatever she expected Daniel's singing voice to sound like, it was not the strong, clear voice she heard beside her. Several times, she forgot to pretend to know the song and gazed up at him in pure admiration. She didn't need a lengthy explanation about why caroling was a tradition. Listening to Daniel's beautiful voice, she knew it in the way that emotions could not always be named, yet were keenly understood.

After the Chancellor and her husband came to the door to listen and wish everyone a good night and Merry Christmas, the carolers moved on to other houses. Cassandra soon realized why Daniel suggested she wear light gloves. Turning the pages of the sheet music was difficult even with thin cotton wrapped around her fingers; it would have been near impossible in her bulky thermal gloves.

She didn't know as many songs as Daniel thought she would, but she managed a convincing lip synching. Songs like _Little Drummer Boy _were easy to pick up after the first stanza, and she knew the more famous carols like _Silent Night_.

"I like this tradition, Daniel. Can we do it every year?"

The archeologist smiled down at her. "You bet, Cassie. I hoped you'd like it. I haven't heard you sing a lot, so I wasn't sure you'd enjoy yourself. You have a lovely voice, though. Why didn't you join the school choir?"

The girl blushed and shrugged her shoulders. "Because you can take either band or choir or art, and I wanted to take art. And because I wouldn't really want to stand on the risers and sing with everybody staring at me."

Daniel laughed. "Well, as someone who has given presentations on the most fringe archeological theories anyone on this planet has ever imagined, I can relate to wanting to avoid the staring eyes. Although, I don't think barely contained scorn would have followed your singing."

"But you're the smartest archeologist in the world."

He laughed again. "Well, thank you, Cassie, but very few people agree with you. You see, my theories, while correct, are completely disregarded by my peers on Earth. They don't know what we know, so landing pads for alien spaceships sounds like science fiction instead of history."

"So you can talk about aliens and spaceships? Why do I have to tell everyone I'm from Toronto then?"

Daniel let the other carolers move far ahead before he answered. "Because scorn isn't something we want a twelve-year-old girl to experience every day. Maybe one day the world will be ready to hear about the Stargate, but not right now."

She looked down and kicked a clump of ice with the toe of her sneaker. "I hate lying to everybody."

He put a comforting hand on the girl's shoulder. "I know, Cassie. We all do. But we have to keep the secret to protect them."

"From what? The Goa'uld could attack Earth whether the world knows about them or not."

"From themselves. You don't know this about the Tau'ri yet, Cassie, but we have a knack for extremes. I don't know what the world would do if we told them about the Stargate, but I think there would be panic and when the Goa'uld came here, they would find a chaotic world ripe for defeat."

The girl nodded glumly. "Okay. I believe you, Daniel. We should catch up to the others."

After an hour of caroling, everyone agreed the temperature dropped too quickly and the wind blew too strongly to continue much longer. Some of the younger children shivered inside their heavy coats. They wound their way back to the Chancellor's house, and Cassandra gathered it was something of a tradition to finish the night where they began with the Chancellor's favorite song.

The white-haired man – a Geology professor named John – indicated the group should turn to the final song in the music book. Cassandra felt her heart skip excitedly. She knew this song because her History teacher, Mr. Brown, had assigned the poem to the whole class as they finished up their six weeks on the Civil War before Christmas Break.

When John held the opening note, Cassandra joined in with the rest of the carolers.

"_I heard the bells on Christmas Day  
>Their old, familiar carols play,<br>And wild and sweet  
>The words repeat<br>Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"_


	18. Train Set

**DECEMBER 18**

"**Train Set"**

The open flaps of the cardboard box on the dining room table mocked Jack. The more he walked around the house ignoring the box, the worse it seemed to get. He went outside to grill a steak despite the falling snow and ate in front of the television. Still the box lurked in the back of his mind, refusing to be pushed aside. The clock joined league with the box in mocking him. What felt like hours were only minutes, and five o'clock seemed as far away as next Sunday.

The colonel considered going in to the SGC to kill time despite Dr. Fraiser's orders to stay off his ankle for another two days. He wanted something to distract his thoughts from the box, and about the only thing that could make him forget would be a messy foothold situation.

A knock on the door finally came after endless hours of idleness and preoccupation. Jack admitted Cassandra with a warm smile. The girl threw her arms around his torso as always and dropped her backpack on the floor by the door.

"How is your foot?" she asked immediately.

"Just fine. And you can tell Dr. Fraiser that when you get home. Also, if she wants to rescind her orders and let me come back to work tomorrow, I would be fine with that."

While he'd waited for General Hammond's daughter-in-law to drop Cassandra off he'd occupied himself by making dinner. He passed her a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and fistful of cheese puffs across the counter.

"Janet can give you orders? I didn't think it worked like that."

"When you've been injured, your doctor is your commanding officer."

While they munched on sandwiches and cheese puffs, Cassandra told him about her day at school. Final exams were Wednesday and Thursday, but Friday afternoon had been reserved for a class party to celebrate the holiday and end of term.

"When I was in school," Jack began, "and walked five miles to get there, we had all our tests on the last day of term. No one let something like "level of concentration" get in the way of making the last day of school before a holiday drag on as long as possible."

His sarcastic humor was somewhat ruined by the Earth hyperbole she had never heard before. "You had to walk _five miles_ to school?"

"In the snow," he deadpanned.

After finishing their meager dinner and leaving the dirty dishes on the counter next to the sink full of other dirty dishes, Cassandra trotted into the living room. She spotted the box immediately, and with a hint of reluctance, Jack carried it from the table to the living room floor. Lowering himself carefully so as not to jostle his ankle, he joined the girl on the carpet.

"This isn't exactly a common Christmas tradition," he prefaced, "but it is an O'Neill family custom. I've missed a few years recently, but I think it's time to start again."

He said it in a way that made the girl think he wanted to convince himself of that more than her. She waited patiently for Jack to remove his large hands from the box top so she could open the flaps and peer inside. When she did, she found a model train obscured by copious amounts of bubble wrap. She lifted out the first compartment and removed it from the protective padding. The bright red steam engine had some scuffs and cuts around the front grill, and the black paint on the wheels had chipped away to reveal silver circles.

"This train set belonged to my great-grandfather. He passed it on to my grandfather, my grandfather gave it to my dad, and I opened this train set on Christmas morning when I was seven."

Cassandra weighed the heavy locomotive model in her hand and stared down at the exquisite detailing of the windows and emblems. She couldn't find the words to describe how she felt knowing Jack included her in this long family tradition. She felt like crying happy tears as she turned the engine over in her hands.

On the bottom of the train segment, names had been scratched into the black paint. She traced her forefinger along the names of Jack's great-grandfather, grandfather, and father. His own name he had carved as Jonathan J. O'Neill and that made her smile to see him claim the train as his own in such a distinctive fashion. Below his was another familiar name: Charlie O'Neill.

"Jack …." She glanced up and saw the colonel's eyes fixed on the name etched into the paint. He looked the way she felt when she thought of Hanka. "I've seen this name before. On the sled. Who is Charlie?"

"My son," he said, after a long pause.

Cassandra felt her breath catch. No one had ever told her Jack had a son, but it explained why he was so good at playing and talking to her when she was scared and sad. She looked around, as if expecting a smaller version of Jack to appear from thin air.

"He died a few years ago."

Her head whipped around so fast her neck ached, and a perfect O formed on her lips. She had no words, so she reached across the box with her one free hand and patted the top of Jack's folded hands. The reassuring gesture was all she could do, but it didn't feel like enough.

Jack took down from the closest coffee table a framed photograph of a blond boy holding a baseball bat. Cassandra accepted the picture frame and stared down at the boy. A spark of recognition flooded her. She felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes again and blinked them away. With the picture and train engine in hand, she scooted awkwardly across the carpet to sit closer to Jack. He put a strong arm around her shoulder, and they sat for a moment with their reflections in the glass on either side of Charlie.

"Thank you, Jack," she whispered. "If I had my brother's favorite kite, I don't think I could let anyone else fly it."

Jack felt a jolt sing through his body, and he stared down in horror at the little girl transfixed by Charlie and his train set. He faltered for a moment, not wanting to ask the question he now knew they had neglected for too long. "You had a brother?"

The girl nodded slowly. "His name was Nico. We were playing when … when he got sick."

The colonel's eyes slipped closed. As if she hadn't been through enough, here was one more nightmare. She hadn't ever spoken about her brother, but Jack understood. Sometimes, forgetful oblivion came easier that way.

"What do you do with a train set?" she asked.

The change of subject came abruptly, but Jack pretended it was natural. He would be the last person to push her to talk about her family.

"You set it up and watch the train go around the tracks. We always put ours around the Christmas tree."

Jack had never been one for decorations, but he'd gritted his teeth and bought a small ceramic tree that lit up when plugged into the wall. It looked even more pathetic than the scraggly tree Janet had allowed into her house.

For the next two and a half, Jack and Cassandra worked together to lay the tracks, assemble the train, and hook up the electricity. When the seventeen compartments of the train were all in line from engine to caboose, Cassandra flipped the switch, and the train began its slow chug around the tree. On the second lap, the girl gave a happy sigh and leaned against Jack, like she belonged nowhere else in the world but here.


	19. Reindeer Games

**DECEMBER 19**

"**Reindeer Games"**

Mid-term exams on Wednesday went quickly for Cassandra who was a good test taker. She had plenty of time after each test, even math, to read part of a book Daniel had lent her: _The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt_.

During last period, she filed down to the auditorium for a full dress rehearsal of _A Christmas Carol_. All the students in the play, choir, or band went backstage with the crew and teachers, but Cassandra stayed with the rest of the school in the audience. The set designer wasn't needed backstage anymore.

She thought Tessa did the best job of anyone in the play, but she didn't have a chance to tell her friend before the buses arrived and teachers shooed the student audience to their lockers and out the front doors.

Cassandra found sitting still on the bus ride home more difficult than she ever had before. Janet and all of SG-1 had the day off from missions and shifts at the SGC. Everyone was coming over to teach her a holiday tradition called "reindeer games." She didn't know what that meant, but she liked the sound of it. It also would be the first time since the snowstorm movie marathon she had seen everyone together.

When she pushed open the front door, she caught a glimpse of what reindeer games were all about. The furniture in the living room had been pushed to the walls or removed to the dining room. An assortment of items covered the couch: stockings, bags of candy, markers, marshmallows, and a box of plastic spoons.

From the kitchen came the sound of many raised voices arguing playfully and laughing. Cassandra kicked off her boots, drawing the attention of Homer who woofed a frenzied greeting and ran to her. Sam's head appeared around the kitchen wall.

"Cassie! Don't come in the kitchen. We're getting a surprise ready for you."

The girl beamed and agreed to stay in the living room where she could inspect the items strewn over the couch. Homer jumped and licked at her face. Laughing, she crouched down next to her dog and rubbed his ears while she shifted through the things on the couch.

"Sir!" Janet exclaimed from the kitchen. "That is not how it's done!"

"I agree with Janet," Sam echoed.

"Ah!" Jack cried, and Cassandra could picture his hand rising to emphasize his point. Next moment, he cursed lowly and something hissed ominously on the stove. Daniel started laughing.

All this had made the girl curious to know what was going on in the kitchen, but she had hardly reached the adjoining wall when Teal'c appeared in front of her, and she reflexively backed into the living room. Homer turned traitor and jumped playfully at the Jaffa.

"Hello, Cassandra. How was your day at school?"

She made small talk with Teal'c about her final exams and the winter festival for ten minutes until Janet and Sam emerged from the kitchen carrying tray of white sugar lumps formed into balls so that it looked like they carried trays of snowballs. Jack and Daniel followed empty-handed, but smiling at Cassandra.

"Reindeer games," Sam said, beaming. "A holiday tradition made up by yours truly when I was nine because I thought my dad didn't act nearly silly enough the rest of the year."

Teal'c cocked an eyebrow, but said nothing.

"So what's the first game?" Cassandra inquired eagerly.

"Blind Frosty Toss." The Captain produced from the clutter on the couch a shoebox wrapped in red construction paper with Frosty the Snowman taped to the side and pulled a blindfold from inside. "Who wants to go first?"

The little girl's hand shot into the air, and since no one else volunteered, Sam tied the black cloth over her eyes and placed a sticky sugar snowball into her palm. Cassandra heard bodies shuffling around out of the way.

"Now throw the snowball and try to make it in the box," Sam said. "I'm holding it, so listen to my voice and aim for me."

"We couldn't have done this with cotton or Styrofoam or marshmallows?" Janet muttered, clearly worried about thrown sugar peppering her carpet, but not wanting to ruin the fun.

"Janet!" Sam scolded. "What would be the fun in that? Besides, I made up these rules when I was nine. What did I care if we had ants the next spring?"

Cassandra couldn't see her foster mother, but she imagined the deep scowl on the doctor's face and giggled. Weighing the congealed sugar in her palm, she judged the distance by Sam's voice and cocked her arm back. She almost released the ball, but Janet shouted, "Underhanded, please!" and she was forced to start over again. She tossed the ball and waited for the sound of sugar breaking against cardboard.

"_Ow!_" Sam exclaimed instead. The girl ripped off the blindfold to see the red box lying overturned on the floor and the woman clutching her forehead. The sugar snowball lay in a shower of debris all over the tan carpet. "You have really terrible aim, Cassie."

"Sorry! Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Who's next?" No one volunteered. "Okay, I'll go next. Will someone hold the box?" Again no one volunteered. "Oh, come on, you guys. This is reindeer games. We're supposed to be silly and do nonsensical things."

"All right. I'll hold the box, but if you hit me in the eye with a lump of sugar, Carter, I swear I'll have you in front a court martial before you can say 'assaulting a superior officer.'"

A twitter of laughter went around the room as Teal'c blindfolded Sam and Jack took the Frosty the Snowman box. Cassandra joined Daniel on a stool by the entertainment center and watched as events unfolded exactly as expected: Jack took a sugar snowball to the face. Janet begged off throwing food at the colonel, but Teal'c was eager for a turn.

"Why didn't you volunteer before?" Jack questioned.

"I did not wish to inflict harm upon Captain Carter."

Cassandra wasn't the only one to laugh, but she was the only one to do it so openly and gleefully. The colonel had nothing to fear from Teal'c, however; he threw three perfect underhanded pitches directly into the waiting red box.

"And on that note," Sam said, "time to start another ridiculous game."

The next game was a relay race called Fill the Stocking. It was as ridiculous as Blind Frosty Toss if not more so. The object of the game was to be the first team to fill a Christmas stocking with Skittles using nothing but a plastic spoon held in your mouth.

"Carter," Jack protested, "are you telling me that you – genius astrophysicist that you are – couldn't come up with anything better than this?"

"Well, sir, I wasn't a genius astrophysicist at nine. And my brother actually came up with this game."

The teams divided up with Cassandra, Sam, and Janet against Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c. Spoons held firmly by their teeth, the girl and the colonel started the first relay. Cassandra scooped up a tiny spoonful of Skittles and thundered across the living room to the stocking hanging below the window sill. All but two of her Skittles had skidded off the teaspoon. As she dumped the two tiny pieces of candy into the huge stocking, she finally appreciated the sheer absurdity of the game.

More than one person lost all their Skittles due to laughter, and when they saw the objective of the game was completely implausible, to outright cheating. Bumping, tripping, and tickling became _de rigueur_ on the way to the stockings, and the team mates waiting for their turn told silly jokes to make the competitors laugh.

"We're out of Skittles," Sam said at last. Cassandra fell to the floor, gasping for breath, she laughed so hard. The adults laughed with the wheezy air of someone trying to get control over their mirth. Even Teal'c smiled without barring his teeth.

"I think it's time to clean up and go for dinner."

No one argued with Janet. Sometime between the Blind Frosty Toss and the second round of Fill the Stocking, Homer had gotten hold of several sugar lumps. He bounced around the house now, howling with delight and leaving a path of destruction in his wake. Janet's spotless house had turned into a disaster zone over the course of an hour. Cassandra wrestled her dog into submission and put him in the laundry room to work off his energy while everyone pitched in to clean up the house.

"Do you have more reindeer games, Sam?"

"You bet I do!" Sam's enthusiasm faded at a sharp look from Janet. "But it's best to do these things in increments. And at my house."


	20. A Christmas Carol

**DECEMBER 20**

"**A Christmas Carol"**

The students at Cheyenne Mountain High School had anticipated December 20th for so long they could scarcely believe the day had finally arrived. After a day of finals, school adjourned. Only about half the students climbed onto the buses, however; the rest remained in the auditorium to check the placement of sets and props, lighting cues, sound equipment, and wardrobes.

"You'll do so great, Tessa," Cassandra assured her best friend. "I've been watching you at every rehearsal, remember? You're the best."

They hugged fiercely at the stage door before Tessa went to put on her costume and Cassandra to hunt down Janet. Her foster mother had arrived at five o'clock with a garment bag containing a black velvet and green silk dress. Along with half a dozen mother-daughter pairs, they crowded into the girls' restroom so Janet could fix Cassandra's hair.

As part of the crew, but not needed backstage, Mr. Owens had asked Cassandra to greet the audience as they came in and hand out programs before the ushers showed them to their seats. She joined Jordan and Dominic, two of the ushers, at the central stage door. They lined up as Mr. Owens had instructed and practiced with the parents already at the school.

"I'll save you a seat," Janet promised Cassandra. "We're down front, third row on the right."

At six o'clock, families started arriving in droves. Some of her friends' parents and siblings she recognized, but most she didn't know at all. Miss Bradley came out from backstage at 6:15 to herd the stragglers into the auditorium. Cassandra saw General Hammond, Mr. and Mrs. Hammond, and Kayla among the crush of people squeezing through the doors. She didn't see Jack, Sam, Daniel, or Teal'c until the teacher told the student helpers to go find their seats.

"You came!" she said excitedly, hopping into the seat between Janet and Sam.

"Of course we came," Jack said. "You think we'd miss seeing your work? Besides, we have an understanding CO." He jerked his head backwards to where General Hammond sat with Kayla on his lap admiring her favorite doll.

The lights went down, and the band began a melodic tune. The choir joined in the song with lyrics about a kindly man called King Wenceslas. When the carol ended and the last notes of the song died away, the senior boy playing Ebenezer Scrooge walked onto the stage covered with fake snow.

Cassandra would have liked the play to go off without a hitch, but it didn't. Sharon forgot one of her lines, and the boy playing Marley tripped over his long chains. Twice the stage crew rolled the wrong sets onto the stage, but they were Victorian houses and only Cassandra noticed. The band and choir filled the act breaks with holiday music that fit _A Christmas Carol_ well.

When the lights came up, Cassandra joined the audience in clapping and springing to her feet. She was surprised by the ending of the play. The whole cast came out for a final bow and presented Mr. Owens with a bouquet of roses. They hadn't practiced that part in rehearsals, and she clapped so hard her hands stung.

"Your sets were fantastic, Cassie," Daniel praised on their way out of the auditorium. "You did a lot of research into Victorian-era homes and cities, didn't you?"

"Yeah, I did. I looked at pictures at the public library and photographs of sets from other plays of _A Christmas Carol_. It was really, really interesting. But I didn't know if they would be accurate because I had to use what the school had."

"They were wonderful and accurate," the archeologist assured her.

Outside, the cast waited for the audience to file past and wished them a goodnight and happy holiday. Cassandra hugged Tessa and told her how well she'd done, but the line moved forward quickly and they didn't have much time to talk.

"I'll see you tomorrow!" Cassandra called, waving at her best friend.

She retrieved her coat from her locker and marched out of the school in a stream of schoolmates and parents. Janet and Daniel waited for her just outside the front door and steered her to where they'd parked their cars in the side lot.

"Jack, Sam, and Teal'c went to warm up the cars," Daniel explained. "But we need to know where we're going to celebrate."

"Celebrate?" she asked blankly.

"It's a tradition to go out for dinner after something like this," Janet said. "You did an amazing job with the sets, Cass, so we're treating you to any meal you want."

Cassandra picked her favorite pizza place even though she knew Janet didn't like her eating a lot of pizza. Her foster mother seemed okay with the selection, though, and even let her get a large soda and a slice of apple dessert pizza after dinner.

"To Cassie," Daniel said, lifting his plastic cup full of Sprite, "and the best sets Cheyenne Mountain High School has ever seen on their stage."

"Here, here!" the other adults chorused while chinking glasses. The girl and Teal'c exchanged sidelong glances, as if to question their friends' sanity, but joined in eventually and took long gulps of fizzy drinks to commemorate the event.

Unlike most nights when Janet rushed Cassandra home to bed, they stayed around the dinner table for a good hour after they finished the pizzas talking about everything and anything that cropped up in conversation. It was Cassandra's first glimpse of these five adults outside of their jobs or roles as her caretakers.

As the evening drew on, Cassandra became quiet as sleepiness crept up on her. Watching their teasing banter from the outside, she felt left out and alone, even though she knew they would include her in their conversation if she had something to say. She sank into her chair as her eyes drooped shut and fell into dreams about a time not so long ago when she was never an outsider because she had known everyone in the village she'd live in her whole life.

When she woke up in the backseat of the car on the way home, she felt moisture on her cheeks and quickly rubbed away the tears. Cassandra didn't see Janet's eyes in the rearview mirror or the troubled glance she exchanged with Daniel in the passenger seat. The rest of the trip home and getting into bed was a blur, but she knew Janet helped her and tucked the covers in around her as she fell back asleep.

"I wish I knew how I could help her," Janet said. Daniel poured a cup of coffee from the pot. "I can heal her body, but they don't teach us how to heal the soul in medical school."

"She's getting there, Janet, whether it seems that way or not. You can tell she's really happy when she's laughing, and who can blame her for still wanting to cry sometimes?"

"I'm worried there's always going to be something more we don't know, like about her having a brother. I think she forgets sometimes what happened on Hanka, and then when it all comes back to her, she feels even worse because she did forget, even if just for an hour."

Daniel exhaled deeply. "I know it's not helpful in the least, but all I can say is that's the way it's supposed to be right now. Survivors' guilt is something we've all experienced."

"I know. I could barely manage those emotions when I was twenty-six and lost my first patient in a combat situation."

"Fortunately for Cassie, children are quicker learners than adults."

Janet smiled ruefully. "Do you really think she'll be okay, Daniel?"

"Oh, I know she will."

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> I'm going to be gone for the next three days, but I don't want to leave you without chapters, so I'm going to upload three more chapters now. You can read them straight through or one a day, whichever you prefer. I'll look forward to seeing you when I get back!


	21. White Elephant Party

**DECEMBER 21**

"**White Elephant Party"**

Janet gave Cassandra a kiss on the top of the head before getting her on the bus Friday morning. The doctor had a late shift at the SGC, and SG-1 was off world on a mission. It had already been agreed that Cassandra would stay the night with Tessa. She boarded the bus with an extra overnight bag and a final wave at Janet who stood in the doorway.

The last day of school before winter break had arrived, but Cassandra didn't understand the significance of the day. She liked school and would have kept going year round without a break. Her friends talked about nothing but the upcoming break, however, and even kept an hourly countdown.

"My mom is picking us up today," Tessa said. Cassandra stuffed her duffle bag into her locker and slammed the door shut so the lock would click. "Kayla is having a friend over too so she won't bug was all night."

The older girl smiled indulgently. She didn't think Kayla was a pest, but Tessa would never listen to her. They parted ways at the diverging of sixth and seventh grade corridors and went to their respective homerooms. The desks had been rearranged into a large circle along the walls of the room. Cassandra joined Sharon, Elaine, and Dominic at a row of desks in front of the chalkboard.

"Are you excited?" Elaine asked. "What are your plans for Christmas?"

Cassandra honestly didn't know what Janet had in mind for Christmas, but she knew she would be learning more holiday traditions until December ended. She was saved having to answer by Dominic sharing his family's plan to go skiing at Aspen.

Their homeroom teacher Mr. Harris came in and called the class to order in his usual too soft voice. It took time for the students in the back of the room to hear him and cease their conversations.

"As you know, this afternoon we're having a holiday party in the gymnasium," Mr. Harris began. "So please turn in your gifts on my desk before you leave for your first lesson. You'll go to all your classes as usual until after lunch when you'll assemble in the gym."

Last week, the notices had gone out that part of the holiday party would be a White Elephant gift exchange. This had confused Cassandra until Janet explained that a white elephant gift wasn't actually an elephant, but something she already owned and no longer wanted or needed. Cassandra didn't have much of that type of possession since she'd received everything she owned two months previous, but she had found a suitable gift all the same. Before she left homeroom, she placed the wrapped copy of _The Illustrated Aesop's Fables _on Mr. Harris' desk.

Some teachers attempted to continue lessons or at least review the semester material, but most gave up and handed out fun assignments, such as word searches or crosswords, only marginally connected to their subject.

At lunch, Cassandra met up with Tessa in front of the cafeteria, and they took their lunches to the benches overlooking the snow-filled courtyard. The frosted glass felt cool against their backs, but the sunlight reflecting off the glistening snow drifts warmed them all the same.

"I think I have another Christmas tradition to teach you," the younger girl said. "But I've never done it myself. I heard about it on the radio. It's going to happen on December 28th if you wanted to go with me."

"Yeah, of course! I'll tell Janet we have plans. I know she doesn't mind because she has to work a lot and can't be home to teach me another tradition every day."

With that decided, the girls turned in their lunch trays and hurried into the gymnasium. The gym was decorated for the holiday with green and red tinsel, baubles, and snowmen. Long tables with bags of popcorn, miniature candy canes, and punch ran along the four walls. In the center of the gym, many booths for games stood waiting for students. They looked like carnival games more than Sam's crazy reindeer games.

As they entered, their principal Mr. Starvisk handed each of them a plain green ticket with a number written in black magic marker for the white elephant exchange. He said that would take place at two o'clock, and they shouldn't lose their tickets or they wouldn't get a present.

"Oh, no! I couldn't imagine not getting someone else's junk," Tessa whispered sarcastically.

"I don't know. It sounds kind of fun. I've never had a white elephant exchange before."

"Really? So is this your tradition for the day?" Cassandra nodded, and that seemed to change Tessa' mind. "Wow. I hope you get something good then. Some people are real jerks and bring in things like used erasers, but other people have some decent stuff like board games or books."

The girls wandered around the booths playing the carnival games and winning trinkets for prizes. Cassandra, it turned out, had fairly good aim without a blindfold. She won a miniature dictionary for getting ping-pong balls into fish bowls. Tessa was better at the games of chance, like the duck pond, and walked away with several costume rings.

At last, Mr. Starvisk came on the intercom and organized the students into lines to collect their gifts. As it turned out, the number on the ticket meant nothing at all. The harried secretaries from the principal's office took the tickets and handed over the first gift their groping fingers found in the giant collection crates.

Cassandra and Tessa went to the benches outside the gym to open their presents where there was less noise and pushing people. Tessa did pretty well with a secondhand Uno deck. She had three already, she said, but it could have been much worse. Cassandra slipped her fingers into the seams of her presents trying to mimic her friend and not reveal she had never opened a gift wrapped box before. She found inside a battered box of colored chalk.

"Ah, rotten luck," her friend observed.

"What? No! Not at all. Art supplies are the perfect gift for me!"

There was something affirming about appreciating an item someone else no longer wanted on a world as plentiful as Earth. When the previous owner could have dumped the chalk in the trash, instead he or she had given it to Cassandra who would use it to create art. It seemed the most beautiful thing in the world to her just then.

"Well, if you like it …."

The girls went back into the gym to enjoy some caramel popcorn and punch before the final bell rang releasing the students for winter break. The energy in the hallway crackled electrically as the students rushed to their lockers and out to the buses. Cassandra hung back by her locker to say goodbye to all her seventh grade friends and wait for Tessa. Mrs. Hammond always dropped her off and picked her up.

Kayla and her friend Andrea sat in the back row of the van looking over the gifts their third grade class had exchanged. Kayla had a cheap set of Barbie clothes, and Andrea held a Magic 8 ball. On the ride home, Mrs. Hammond stopped at the grocery store to pick up some items for dinner. She purposely let the girls' see the Italian sub buns sticking out of the top of the paper sack so they all guessed Mr. Hammond would be making his famous meatball subs.

At the house, Kayla and Andrea disappeared into the younger sisters' room while Cassandra followed Tessa into her bedroom. Both doors snapped shut at the same time and would stay that way all night except for when Mrs. Hammond announced dinner.

"Here," Tessa said. She held out a small box wrapped in silver paper. "I got you a Christmas present. I don't know if we'll get to see each other before Christmas, so …."

Cassandra accepted the box with a smile, and rifled through her own duffle bag before opening the gift. She had a box of about the same size for Tessa. Together, they ripped off the paper. Cassandra had made her friend several origami animals – a crane, fox, and turtle – from an Asian art book she found in the public library.

"You always try to fold your napkins into birds," she explained.

"And never can," Tessa laughed. She put the figures on a place of honor along the shelf holding her sports trophies and ribbons. "Thank you, Cassie. They're really good."

Tessa had given her a delicate snow globe. She lifted it out of the box and peered into the small glass ball. A miniature version of Colorado Springs, identifiable only because of Cheyenne Mountain, rested beneath swirling snowflakes.

"I saw that you had one in your room last time I was there. I thought you might collect them."

"I don't, but …. The other one, it's from my old home; this is my new home. This is the perfect present, Tess. Thank you."

The girls embraced tightly and sat down to plan out their sleepover – teen magazines, movies, and plenty of giggling over cute boys – until Mr. Hammond announced that "dinner is ready to be devoured!"


	22. Sleigh Ride

**DECEMBER 22**

"**Sleigh Ride"**

The weather turned severe overnight. Cassandra and Tessa stayed awake well after midnight watching the swirling snow pile up on the window sill and fell asleep to the wind rattling the shudders. When they woke up Saturday midmorning, a fresh blanket of snow covered the city and more flakes descended from the overcast sky.

The girls spent all day outside playing in the powder. An expert at snowmen and snowball fights, Cassandra initiated both activities. Kayla and Andrea joined in the fun until Andrea's father arrived to pick her up at two o'clock. Only then did Cassandra realize Janet was overdue. She went on forming snowballs and hurling them at Kayla and Tessa, but she worried silently that something had happened at the SGC.

"Cassie," Mrs. Hammond called from the open sliding glass door. "Janet is on the telephone."

The girl leapt up from her hiding place behind the doghouse and ran across the backyard – taking two snowballs to the back as she did so – into the Hammond's kitchen. She took off her boots and shook the snow off her jeans before picking up the cordless phone waiting on the kitchen table.

"Hello, Janet?"

"Cassie, sweetheart, I'm sorry I haven't been able to call before now. I've been in surgery. Listen, Dr. Warner isn't feeling well, and I need to stay here for awhile longer. I've talked to Caroline, and she said it's fine if you stay there until tonight."

"Is everyone okay?" Horrible images of Jack or Sam or Daniel on a surgical table flashed behind her eyes, and she gripped the phone so tightly her knuckles turned white and she lost feeling in her fingertips.

"Everyone is just fine, Cassie. Sergeant Siler had an accident, but he's patched up and on his way to a full recovery. Jack checked in a few hours ago, and SG-1 is scheduled to come back on time today. If I can't get away tonight, I'll ask Sam to pick you up."

Cassandra breathed a sigh of relief. "Okay. Good."

"So you're okay staying at Tessa's for a few more hours?"

"Of course. I'll see you tonight. Or whenever you can leave."

The girl hung up the cordless phone and handed it back to Mrs. Hammond. She made sure to thank her best friend's parents for letting her stay before pulling her boots back on and going out to rejoin the snowball fight.

When the sun began to sink behind the horizon, Mr. Hammond called the girls inside and put three steaming bowls of chicken noodle soup in front of them. After dinner, they played board games at the dining room table. The hands of the clock slowly ticked past eight o'clock, and still Janet hadn't come or called again. Cassandra was ready to give in to worry again when there was a knock at the door. Mr. Hammond skipped his turn at Monopoly to answer.

"Dad!"

Tessa and Kayla perked up at once. "Grandpa?"

General Hammond appeared in the dining room still wearing his green parka, but no shoes. His granddaughters leapt up from their seats and ran to wrap him in hugs. He spent a few affectionate moments on them before turning to Cassandra.

"I'm also here to take Cassie home. Dr. Fraiser has had an accident." Seeing the panic flashing across Cassandra's face, he hurried to explain. "She's just hit her head and is under strict orders from Dr. Warner not to drive."

Cassandra relaxed enough to see Mr. and Mrs. Hammond's curious expressions. If they wanted to ask how a surgeon ended up with a concussion, they kept the question to themselves. She wanted to know why Sam hadn't come to pick her up, but she knew General Hammond wouldn't be able to answer in front of his family, so she kept quiet and went to collect her things. When she came down from Tessa's room, both sisters had put on their boots and winter coats.

"We talked grandpa into another Christmas tradition!" Kayla announced proudly.

Cassandra wondered how Kayla knew about her learning traditions since Tessa didn't willingly share anything – even information – with her little sister. General Hammond pushed the "off" button on the cordless phone and handed it over to his daughter-in-law a moment later.

"Dr. Fraiser says it would be fine if we're a little late." He added to his son and daughter-in-law, "I'll have Tessa and Kayla home before ten."

The three girls and General Hammond filed out of the house and down the sidewalk. While his granddaughters climbed into the car, the General put a firm hand on Cassandra's shoulder to signal her to stop for a moment.

"I hope you know, Cassie, I wouldn't be here if SG-1 wasn't safe." She nodded. "Good. Dr. Jackson wanted me to be sure to tell you he wouldn't miss tomorrow for the world – any of them."

She desperately wanted to ask what kept them away, but Tessa and Kayla were gazing at them curiously through the car windows. She joined them in the backseat and strapped herself in as General Hammond backed out of the driveway.

They drove the short distance to Cottonwood Creek Park and past the Christmas lights Cassandra had seen with Daniel and Teal'c. On the north side of the park, General Hammond parked the car. When the girls climbed out of the backseat, they had to jog to keep up with the general's brisk pace. He led them down a tree-lined path to a circular cobblestone track.

Along the cobblestone way dusted with snow, a line of six white horse-drawn carriages waited for passengers. Cassandra slowed to a crawl as she passed the first horse. She had seen them in books and on the television, but never in real life. She wanted to pet its dappled gray body, but something about the tack shining in the moonlight and the blinders over its eyes made her think the carriage driver wouldn't allow it.

"Cassie!" Kayla cried. "This one!"

The girl hurried to catch up. General Hammond had already helped Tessa into the high carriage, and she motioned for Cassandra to join her on the plush red cushioned bench. With her back to the driver's, Cassandra couldn't see the horse that would pull them along the path, but she had a better vantage point to see the five other horses, all with slight variations in coat or mane color.

"Something wrong, Cassie?" Tessa wanted to know. "You look a little … overwhelmed."

"No. I've never seen a horse in real life is all."

"Really? Not even when you were Amish?"

Cassandra shook her head and hoped Tessa let it go.

"Weird. Well, we go horseback riding in the summer. You should come with us. I'm pretty good at it, and I could show you how to do it."

"But they're so big!"

Tessa laughed. "We don't ride big horses like this. Actually, dad has us ride ponies. They're a lot smaller and easier to control, but they're not always nicer. There's this one that bites a lot, but he likes Kayla for some reason."

"Oh, okay. Yeah, that would be fun. But I don't want a pony that bites."

It was the first time since coming to Earth that Cassandra had made future plans. That didn't occur to her at the moment, however. At first, she had wondered how long she would live with Janet or if they would send her somewhere else. Now, the idea that she wouldn't still be with Janet in six months seem inconceivable.

"We can do a summer traditions month," Tessa said, "just like we're doing Christmas traditions. Mom doesn't have to work during the summer because school is out, so we'll have all day, all summer."

"I'd like that."

General Hammond lifted Kayla into the carriage and joined her on the bench opposite Tessa and Cassandra. With everyone in the carriage, the driver urged the horse forward and they pulled away from the sidewalk.

The ride lasted for half an hour and went around the pond with the Twelve Days of Christmas lights. The rhythmic clip-clop of the horse's hooves and the steady backward and forward jostle lulled the girls into a half-sleep. Even General Hammond's eyes drooped a little. Through half-closed lids, with the snow falling on their shoulders, Cassandra thought this was the perfect Christmas postcard day.

* * *

><p><strong>Fact:<strong> Sleigh rides on hard surfaces like pavement are painful to the horses, and the stress of working all day severely shortens a horse's lifespan. To read more, you can go to Equine Advocates (remove spaces): equineadvocates. org/ ?recordID=6


	23. Solstice

**DECEMBER 23**

"**Solstice"**

The number of injuries that flooded the Air Force Academy Hospital around Christmas staggered Janet every year. No matter the number of patients or the severity of their condition, she was determined not to miss the Solstice celebration Cassandra and Daniel had planned for the evening.

"How did you finish … that was an aortic valve tear!" Dr. Shane gasped.

Janet hit the automatic button on the faucet and began her scrub out. "The power of positive thinking, Gordon. Something you could stand to learn considering you're on the board for a Whipple later today."

The petite doctor charged down the hallway ten minutes later in civilian clothes and with figurative blinders shielding her from any nurse or resident doctor who might try and flag her down. Only when she climbed into her car and pulled out of the parking lot did she relax and begin to believe she wouldn't have to miss Cassandra's big event after all.

When she arrived home, Homer woofed enthusiastically and threw himself at her car door. He did this a lot: baying and howling madly, trying to get to her and not realizing she couldn't open the door until he stopped crashing into it. Not for the first time, she wanted to wring Colonel O'Neill's neck. Would it have killed him to give Cassandra a cocker spaniel or dachshund or basset hound? Instead, he'd selected an Akita, one of the most excitable breeds.

After a few moments, the dog calmed down enough that Janet could pry open the door open a crack and squeeze out of the car. Daniel pulled in a few minutes later with Cassandra in the front seat. Homer repeated the process of throwing himself at the car door, trapping the girl for a full minute until Janet wrestled him down.

"I'm thinking about obedience school," she said pointedly. "How did he get out of the house anyway?"

"You hear that, Homey? If you don't stop attacking cars you'll have to learn to sit and stay." The girl knelt in the slushy snow to scratch her dog behind the ears. "I think he's big enough to jump over the backyard fence now."

Muttering under her breath, Janet went to help Daniel remove items from the trunk. There was surprisingly little needed for a solstice ceremony: wood, kindling, sweet rolls, and string. The archeologist had already explained Cassandra had scaled down the event. There would be no men tied to trees and no women delivering babies.

"I can't believe you braved the stores on December 23rd," she said, shaking her head.

"Me either. You know it took us an hour to get logs from an apple tree? But it was for a good cause. I mean, how often do you get to see an alien midwinter celebration? From what Cassie has told me, it's a unique blend of Ancient Greek and Hindu. Where else in the universe does that happen?"

His excitement was infectious. As the hours until sunset approached, Daniel and Cassandra chatted about the Hankan customs. The girl didn't know as much of the history of the ceremony as the archeologist would have liked, but she knew just enough to send him on long speculative tangents.

At last, the hour before sunset arrived, and Cassandra announced it was time to go the backyard. Earlier in the day, she and Daniel had burrowed through layers of snow to place a brazier in the back corner of the yard. It was supposed to be a fire pit, but the Colorado cold froze the ground solid. The dying light turned the air chill, and they huddled down into their parkas and scarves as they gathered around the brazier.

"Homer, you sit here," Cassandra instructed her dog. She put a pair of reindeer antlers on his head; the dog whined and tried to paw off the headband. Turning to the adults, she explained, "We're supposed to have a _yuuke_ here, but Daniel said you don't have any of those on Earth. Homer will have to do."

With the adults' help, Cassandra set a fire in the brazier. The burning apple wood released a pleasantly sweet aroma like hot apple cider. The girl walked around the rim three times and spoke in Goa'uld.

"She's saying farewell to the Sun and that we'll hold vigil by the fire until he returns in the morning. She asks that he not forget to come back because the farmers need his light. She's offering him 'a sacrifice of plenty.'"

Daniel watched in fascination as Cassandra tied red string around the sticky rolls and secured them to branches. She held the branch over the fire and let the fire lick away the sugar coating and then the fluffy dough.

"Now we sit around the fire," she announced. "There's more, but we don't have the _yuuke_ or anyone to tie to a tree. Usually, we would take turns dancing around the tree and put a crown the _yuuke_."

She knew how odd the traditions must sound to Daniel and Janet, but decorating a tree and singing outside people's houses was just as strange to her.

"That's amazing. This ritual has clearly evolved from the Lenaia into a much more civilized celebration. Cassie, I don't think you realize how close you are to celebrating Christmas. You see, this very celebration became the basis of Christmas – or rather the date of Christmas – about five hundred years after your people were taken from Earth."

Having learned about Christmas from Daniel, Cassandra knew her world never would have celebrated the holiday like it was on Earth, but it made her happy to think her ways weren't totally separate from Earth's.

As the night wore on, and the air became colder, they added logs to build up the fire and huddled in closer to stay warm. The solstice night on Hanka did not last as long as on Earth, and Cassandra felt her eyelids drooping by two o'clock in the morning. She kept herself awake by showing Daniel some of the traditional Hankan dances, but laughed herself silly the whole time because she only knew the women's steps.

Homer cleared a bed in the snow and curled up close to the fire. Janet, who had been awake for close to twenty-four hours, began to nod off around four o'clock. Daniel too looked ready to topple over, but Cassandra wouldn't let herself sleep. This was the most important celebration on Hanka, and even if it lasted twice as long on Earth, she wouldn't let herself skip it because she was tired. She wouldn't give up all the memories of past solstices just because she was on Earth.

She stared into the crackling fire and willed herself to stay awake until the sun rose again. The more she watched the leaping flames, the more she felt like she sat around the fire with her mother, father, and brother while her friends and their families took a turn forming a wide circle and dancing around the tree. Cassandra looked up sharply, almost expecting to see Nico grinning mischievously as he tried to coax the _yuuke_ into spitting on her: good luck for the coming year.

But she would never see Nico again.

The tears rolled down her cheeks before she realized sadness had stolen over her again. She tried to brush away the wetness, but deep cold froze the moisture onto her cheeks. She couldn't get rid of the tears, and it made her cry even harder. She didn't know how long she sat curled up keening into her scarf, but she woke Homer, who whined and nuzzled her with his snout. The girl wrapped her arms around her dog's neck and cried into his thick fur.

Sometime later, a pair of comforting arms pulled her into an embrace, and Cassandra buried her face in Janet's shoulder. Sobs wracked her small body, and for the first time since losing everyone she loved, she let out all her grief.

"Sssh, Cassie. I'm here," Janet crooned softly in her ear. "I'm here."

When the sun rose on Christmas Eve, Janet carried the still sniffling girl into the house and tucked her into bed. She spent the morning asleep on the floor by Cassandra's bed with her back against the bedside table because the girl would not sleep unless Janet held her hand and murmured softly, "I'm here. I'll always be here."


	24. Stockings

**DECEMBER 24**

"**Stockings"**

Cassandra woke a few hours after the sun had risen to find Janet leaning against her bedside table still grasping her hand tightly. The girl smiled and settled down into her pillow. Her eyes found the snow globe with windmills under glass, and she remembered how she had cried during the Solstice ceremony. She would have gotten into trouble for that on Hanka, since the Solstice was a time to be happy, but she felt better letting out those emotions and hearing Janet promise to always be there for her.

After an hour of lying in bed, she tried to gently extract her hand from Janet's and accidentally roused her foster mother. The doctor stretched her aching back muscles and rolled her neck. Then she saw Cassandra was awake.

"Cassie," she said, taking the girl's hand again. "How are you doing?"

"I'm okay, Janet. I feel better now."

The woman nodded and bore such a look of sympathy on her face it made Cassandra want to cry all over again because she had someone – a lot of people – who cared about her.

"Cass, if you ever want to talk about your family or Hanka, you know I'll be here to listen, right? You can tell me anything, whenever you need to talk."

"Yeah. I know."

After showers and fresh clothes, Janet made Cassandra waffles with apple and cinnamon. The girl doled out the viscous New Hampshire maple syrup like she feared she'd never taste it again and washed down the sticky breakfast with an equally sugary glass of orange juice. Proof of Janet's exhaustion came when she indulged in the same sugary breakfast.

"Merry Christmas Eve," the doctor said belatedly. "I have a special Fraiser family tradition for you today, but you'll have to wait for tonight. It can only be done when you're so excited for Christmas morning you can't stand it anymore."

Cassandra spent the day putting the finishing touches on the art she would give to Janet, Sam, Jack, Daniel, and Teal'c on Christmas. She used the hairdryer on the paint and drew Janet's curiosity when she announced after lunch that she had to bake some of her presents. When she had wrapped all the presents in reflective blue paper decorated with snowflakes, she trotted out to the living room to find Janet had been just as busy.

Piles of presents had appeared around the tiny, scraggly Christmas tree. Some bore the telltale signs of Sam's gift wrapping – white strips of paper and bunched Scotch tape – while others had been put into bags of tissue paper. A few looked as immaculate as the displays in store windows. Those were done by Janet's precise hand.

"Wow."

The girl almost dropped the armful of presents she had carried out of her room. Wide-eyed, she stared at each gift, suddenly full of burning desire to know exactly what lay beneath each layer of gift wrap or tissue paper. Janet saw the hungry look in her eye and laughed.

"I think you might be ready for the Fraiser family Christmas Eve tradition."

Cassandra put her gifts by the tree. She knew from pictures of Christmas trees and the one at the Hammond's house that presents were supposed to go under the tree, but their little evergreen was too low to the ground for that.

Janet came back into the room with a red stocking trimmed on top with white felt. In colorful glitter, someone with an unsteady had had printed: JANET. She held it out to the girl, who accepted it hesitantly.

"You fill it up with whatever will fit. I have yours." She held aloft an identical stocking with CASSANDRA printed neatly along the top. "When we're done, we exchange stockings. My dad meant for it to keep us occupied on Christmas Eve so we didn't shake our presents and try to guess what was inside."

The girl went back to her room with Homer on her heels and pondered what she could fill the stocking with. Janet didn't like to eat a lot of sweets, so putting candy in the stocking wouldn't be a good idea. She had used up most of her art supplies on Christmas presents, and she didn't have any more money to go buy another present.

"Okay, let's be creative, Homey."

The dog cocked his head to the side, mimicking his owner. When she didn't move or speak for awhile, Homer gave up looking pensive and let his tongue lull out of his mouth. After a few more minutes, he curled up on the bed and went to sleep. Cassandra scratched his ears absently while she thought.

When the idea came, it was like a light going on. She leapt up from the bed and raced through the house to the bathroom. She wrenched open the medicine cabinet, filled her arms with everything they could carry, and ran back to her room. She worked for four hours without a break before standing back proudly to observe her creations.

The sun had settled behind the mountains sometime while she worked, and the clock said it was already seven o'clock. The long day on little sleep was finally catching up with the girl, but she stifled a yawn and packed the items into the stocking.

"Janet, Janet! I'm ready. I've got your stocking done."

She skidded into the living room to find her foster mother calmly marking her place in a book. The CASSANDRA stocking rested on the floor by her feet propped up against the couch. Homer immediately went to investigate by sniffing at it. Janet shooed him away as Cassandra hopped up next to her on the couch.

"You go first, Cassie."

Taking out each item one-by-one, the girl fought to contain the giddiness she felt at receiving gifts. It was a new feeling since gift-giving on Hanka rarely happened, but she liked this tradition very much.

Janet had put into her stocking a small assortment of candy in clear plastic bulbs, but filled the rest with small presents: new colored pencils, Scrunchies, delicate silver butterfly necklace, and a card that said she had a subscription to _Seventeen_ for a year. At the very bottom, she found a chocolate orange.

"Thank you, Janet!" She gave her foster mother a tight embrace. "Now it's your turn!"

As much as pulling presents out of the stocking made her excited, it was nothing to the anticipation of watching Janet remove items out of her stocking and slowly watching comprehension dawn on her face. Cassandra stuffed her fists into her mouth to keep from laughing.

On Janet's lap and the couch around her lay: a Dixie cup with dyed cotton balls attached to Q-tips, the empty Q-tip box wrapped in white paper, a cotton ball snowman with a broken Q-tip arm, and a paper doll wearing a white lab coat.

"Wait!" the girl cried, leaping up from her seat. She dashed into the kitchen and came back with a pizza tray and large clear popcorn bowl. With the items arranged on the tray, she covered it with the upturned bowl. "A hospital snow globe!"

Janet gazed down at the homemade snow globe with moisture gathering in her brown eyes. After a few moments, she pulled Cassandra into a fierce hug that she held so tight and so long, the girl started squawking in protest.

"You're welcome, you're welcome!"

"Oh, Cass. This is the perfect present."

The doctor dabbed at the tears leaking out of her eyes, and Cassandra shifted uncomfortably. She hoped no one started crying tomorrow when they opened the much better artistic creations she had made for them.

After a late snack of milk and cookies, another concession on Janet's part because it was a special occasion, Cassandra climbed into bed and fell asleep as her head hit the pillow.

Janet stood in the doorway for awhile longer, staring at the custom made windmill snow globe on the bedside table. A bond had formed between her and this little girl two months ago, but it had come to its zenith tonight. A decision had been made without Janet being aware of it. It filled her with dread and uncertainty, but mostly with joy.

Five minutes later, she held the phone to her ear and listened to the ringing with growing nerves. At last, an answer. "General Hammond, it's Dr. Fraiser. I'm so sorry to bother you on Christmas Eve, sir, but you said to call the moment I'd made my decision. I'd like to start the paperwork as soon as possible." She paused, listening. "Yes, sir, I am absolutely sure. Cassandra is the best thing that's ever happened to me, sir. I couldn't stand it if anyone else adopted her." She paused again. "Yes, sir. You too, General."

When Janet hung up the phone, she felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She had wanted to make that phone call for weeks, and now that it was done, she felt free to release her worry and to embrace all the joy one little girl gave to her.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Hello, again! I've missed you all so much. I'm back from a wonderful, relaxing vacation and ready to pick up my regular posting schedule again. I've gotten around to answering some questions in reviews. You can take a look here (remove spaces): arainymonday. tumblr. com/ tagged/questions-about-i-heard-the-bells-on-christmas-day


	25. Christmas Day

**DECEMBER 25**

"**Christmas Day"**

The cold blue light of dawn shone through the window as Cassandra slowly crawled out of a peaceful sleep. Curled up under the window on top of the covers, Homer snored lightly. The girl blinked at the alarm clock and saw it was only six o'clock, but a surge of giddy energy rushed through her.

"Wake up, Homer! It's Christmas!"

She leapt out of bed and jammed her feet into slippers before charging through the house. For a girl who had never celebrated Christmas or any holiday like it, she felt ridiculously excited about Christmas morning. Skidding on the kitchen linoleum, she grabbed the wall for support and flung herself into the living room.

The presents still sat all around the tree just as they had the night before. Cassandra knelt in front of the largest one, her hands running over the silky paper and hovering over the crease where later in the day she would rip the paper off. Homer didn't care about the gifts. He whined and pawed at the door. The girl exchanged boots for slippers and went outside with him.

A high wind from the mountains had turned everything icy overnight. A few cars loaded down with families and gifts crept by with snow chains on their tires. Major English, their next door neighbor, strode out of the house in his dress blues on his way to Peterson Air Force Base.

"Merry Christmas, Major!" Cassandra called.

The short, muscular man paused on his way down the driveway and waved to her. He approached the hedge between their driveways, and she ran over to meet him.

"Merry Christmas, Cassie. Does Dr. Fraiser have the day off?"

"Yes, sir," she answered. She didn't elaborate any further, but all SG teams were on standby for the day unless their previous missions were critical or the base personnel called in an emergency situation.

"Good. I'm glad to hear you get a whole Christmas. Megan and Maggie will have to wait until I get off duty at 1600. You know you might have to wait some years," he said, not unkindly.

"Yes, sir. Janet told me that, and I know what she does is important."

"I'm glad to hear that too. Merry Christmas."

Major English's two-year-old twin girls came onto the patio with their mother and waved as his car rolled down the street. Cassandra wished them a Merry Christmas too before taking Homer back inside the house.

Either the door or footsteps running through the house had woken Janet. She was in the kitchen making a quick breakfast, but seemed more preoccupied with turning on the oven and greasing every pan in the cabinets. Before Cassandra had even finished her oatmeal, a glazed ham had found its way into the oven and a ten pound bag of potatoes were on their way to getting peeled and mashed.

"Hurry and get dressed," Janet ordered.

Cassandra obeyed. She took a quick shower and put on her favorite jeans and purple turtleneck sweater. As soon as she appeared in the kitchen, Janet handed her a list of cooking chores to do while she took a shower.

"And I thought Thanksgiving was bad," the girl muttered to Homer. The dog sat staring up at the countertop pleadingly and licking his chops.

At nine o'clock, Sam arrived with two store bought pies, a sweet potato casserole, and a package of rolls. The captain barely had time to hug Cassandra, who was knee deep in potato peelings, before Janet assigned her a cooking task.

"I'm not sure I'm the person to help here, Janet. My cooking skills are limited to 'so simple a monkey could do it.'"

The doctor thrust a can of creamed corn at her. "Could a monkey use a can opener?"

The frenzied cooking went on for another three hours. Homer eventually gave up on getting any scraps and went to sulk in the living room. Cassandra was so busy doing everything Janet ordered that she forgot about the piles of presents waiting to be opened in the living room until the doorbell rang at noon and Janet sent her to answer it.

Daniel was at the door with a crock pot full of richly aromatic soup. Homer perked up hopefully, but returned to morosely staring at the kitchen when the archeologist hurried past with the food. Jack and Teal'c arrived a few minutes later bearing no dishes, but with a bottle of wine and bubbly.

In the kitchen, preparations had reached a fever pitch with timers buzzing and the smoke alarm wailing loudly. While Sam used a cookie sheet to waft the smoke away from the detector, Janet ducked under her arms to carry casserole dishes and bowls to the table.

"Aren't doctors supposed to triage?" Jack asked no one in particular. "I don't think getting food to the table takes priority over possibly burning down the house."

"Ah!" Janet cried, as she hurried past the colonel, and made his signature 'shut up' gesture. "Table. Now."

"Yes, ma'am," he replied, and added in a sardonic salute for good measure.

Once Janet had the food on the table and calmed down enough to take and keep her seat, Christmas dinner commenced. The bowls and platters circled the table, and Homer came to beg something off each person at the table. Janet had a better treat than scraps for the dog: the ham bone. The Akita flopped down next to Cassandra and happily chewed on the bone.

"This is a wonderful meal, Janet. Thank you for inviting us over," Daniel said.

Cassandra watched with some amusement as Janet, Sam, Daniel, and Jack finished off the bottle of wine at dinner and during dessert while she and Teal'c had hardly put a dent in the bubbly. The Jaffa evidently did not approve of the way the wine put them in good spirits or else did not understand it because he spent most of the meal with one eyebrow cocked.

"You weren't kidding, Daniel. That was excellent, Janet," Jack said, stretching out in his chair. "I could use a nice long nap."

"What?" Cassandra demanded. "There's a room full of presents, for crying out loud!"

Mirthful laughter followed the adults as they cleared off the table. Cassandra trailed after them, juggling dirty plates. With the dishes in the dishwasher or soaking in the sink, Janet shooed Cassandra into the living room to start passing out the gifts.

The center of the living room filled up quickly with ripped gift wrapping and tissue paper. Cassandra took great delight and tearing the wrapping paper of the largest presents. A stack of gifts quickly grew up around her. She received a telescope, globe, chess set, Trivial Pursuit, _The Unabridged Oxford English Dictionary_, fishing rod and tack, rollerblades, a stack of clothes, and a bicycle.

By the time she had unwrapped the last present, she was so overwhelmed she could hardly say anything but, "Thank you!" over and over. She felt that the paintings she had made for each of them couldn't compare to the amazing gifts they'd given her until Janet took down a black and white photograph and replaced it with her painting.

Beaming widely, the girl helped stuff the discarded wrapping paper into trash bags. She took Homer outside again while she put the bags in the garbage cans. The air had turned frigid and the wind had picked up considerably now that the sun had gone down. She was eager to get back inside.

" … would have just worked," Daniel was saying as she came back inside. Cassandra stopped Homer from charging through the house so she could wipe the snow off his paws.

"She's made this the best Christmas I've had in a long time," Sam echoed. "I can't believe I'd forgotten how much fun Christmastime can be."

"You're supposed to have kids around at Christmas," Jack said. "Kids and old folks. They get what Christmas is about. The rest of us have forgotten."

Cassandra's fingers stopped working. They were talking about her. Part of her wanted to hear more about how they liked her being around, but the better part knew it was wrong to eavesdrop. She let Homer's forepaw go, and he thundered through the house to announce their presence. When she trotted into the living room a minute later with rosy cheeks, Janet wrapped her in a blanket.

They spent the rest of the day munching on roasted nuts and leftover pie while playing Trivial Pursuit. The questions were too hard for Cassandra, but she had fun guessing and getting the correct answers from Daniel and Sam, who generally didn't need to look at the back of the cards. As the night wore on, they put in _Miracle on 34__th__ Street_.

"Does Santa Claus no longer disturb you, Cassandra?" Teal'c asked.

"No. Daniel explained everything to me. Santa Claus wasn't a Goa'uld, Teal'c; he's an Asgard!"

Four sets of eyes turned accusingly on Daniel. He only shook his head sadly, and muttered something about trying again later. Cassandra leaned back against the couch and dozed off as Edmund Gwenn directed a mother to a better store where she could find her daughter roller skates.


	26. Ski Trip

**DECEMBER 26**

"**Ski Trip"**

An incessantly shaking hand roused Cassandra from sleep. She blinked blearily wondering how she had gotten to her bed when the last thing she remembered was sitting down to watch _Miracle on 34__th__ Street_. The sun had not risen yet, and the eastern sky held only the faintest traces of blue.

"Wha – ?" she asked groggily.

"Time for another holiday tradition," Janet said quietly.

Cassandra climbed out of bed, only reluctantly leaving the warmth of her duvet, and stumbled to the bathroom. Sam greeted her with a big hug and bright smile in the living room, and that woke her up a bit.

"Sam? What are you doing here?"

"I'm coming with you today, of course. Hurry up and get dressed so we can go. We'll need all day. Dress warm."

With a little motivation, Cassandra took a quick shower and pulled on two layers of clothes before going out to the living room again. Janet and Sam were loading up the car with armloads of winter clothes when she joined them in driveway.

She was too tired to ask about where they were going when the sun wasn't up yet and fell asleep in the backseat of the car. When she woke again, it was because the dawn cast fiery orange light onto her face. She sat up and peered out the car windows trying to figure out where they were.

"Just in time," Janet said, glancing in the rearview mirror. "We're almost there."

The car trundled along hugging the mountain wall closely as the road climbed upward. On the mountain slopes out the driver side window little black specks descended cleared runs among the alpine slopes. Cassandra perked up and pressed her face to the glass.

"Skiing?" she exclaimed. "Dominic talks about skiing all the time!"

Sam turned around in the passenger seat and grinned. "I remember you telling me that, so I started planning this ski trip for us. We'll have to do easy slopes so you can learn, and I can brush up, but you'll love skiing, Cassie. It's the best sport there is."

Cassandra continued to stare at the ski slopes as Janet pulled the car into the parking lot in front of a large wooden ski lodge. People in brightly colored snowsuits streamed in and out of the building. Some carried their skis on the shoulders and others had snowboards tucked under their arms. They formed up in long queues in front of the ski lifts stretching high up the mountainside.

It was quite an ordeal to go skiing, Cassandra realized. After getting lift tickets at the booth between the ski lodge and chair lift, they had to go rent boots and skis. The bindings had to be adjusted for their boot size and weight. Buckling into the tight, hard plastic boots was a trial unto itself.

At last, they tottered out to the chair lift walking strangely in their ski boots, and Janet showed Cassandra how to fit her boot into the ski binding. Riding up the lift between Janet and Sam, Cassandra leaned over and swung her skis back and forth wildly. The dizzying height of the chair suspended over the snow made her head swim and a giggle escape her throat.

Janet and Sam held her arms at the top of the run and guided her as they slid down the decline and around the operations shack. The girl peered up at the mountain towering overhead and the winding slopes cut through trees above. When she turned again to the hill chosen for her, she felt deep disappointment. Compared to the exciting and steep slopes higher on the mountain, this one looked plain and boring. Wide and straight, with no dips or moguls at all, lines of children and ski instructors wove their way across the gradual decline.

"Goggles." Janet pulled the cushioned plastic ski goggle from her forehead over her eyes and the world took on an amber tint. The glare of sunlight on snow all but disappeared. "Better?"

"Loads. But why can't we go up there?" The girl pointed high on the mountain where skiers descended a wide bowl with the spray of powder snow trailing them.

"That's a black diamond," Sam said. "You want to stick to the green circles."

The difference was unfathomable to Cassandra, but she shrugged. She trusted Sam and Janet to know what was best for her. When they demonstrated how she should slide down the mountain with the tips of her skis pointed together in a style they called "the snowplow" she immediately repositioned her booted feet. Controlling the long skis was difficult, but she managed it in the end.

"Use the poles to push off," Janet directed, "and then use your arms to balance. Sam will go down ahead of you, and I'll be coming down right after."

Sam pushed off expertly and descended the slope gracefully by swishing her hips and turning her skis parallel. That looked a lot more fun than the snowplow. Cassandra dug the tips of her poles into the snow and straightened her skis. Pushing off hard, she tried to mimic Sam's hip-swishing movement, but her ski tips clattered together, and she landed face-first in the snow.

"Cassie, are you okay?"

Much to her humiliation, she had gotten hardly six feet down the slope. Janet came to a stop just below her spot on the ground and used her poles to brace herself. She nodded pathetically. Her left side felt sore, like she'd fallen on rock, not snow. Together, they untangled her skis, and Janet showed her how to use her poles to stand up.

"Point your skis in," Sam called from further down. "And don't push off so hard!"

Cassandra tried to follow what was likely sage advice, but the minute she pushed off, her skis refused to do as her legs commanded and went in opposite directions. The result was a teeth-jarring fall and tumble. One of her skis snapped loose from its bindings and went flying. The girl lay dazed on the snow, blinking up at the clouds floating languidly across the amber-tinted sky.

"I'm fine!" she cried a minute later, waving her arm around to prove she wasn't paralyzed.

Sam retrieved her ski and helped her up. With the ski back in place – and her left side feeling even more sore – Cassandra took a deep, fortifying breath to steel herself for another try. Janet had skied down the mountain to wait for her. This time, when she pushed off, she managed to control her skis enough to point the tips at each other. She crept down the mountain doing the perfect snowplow and using the poles in her hands to balance herself.

"That's great, Cassie!" Janet called.

It might have been good form, but Cassandra could think of little else as boring as skiing slow as molasses when kids younger than her zoomed down the slope. Gradually, she manipulated her skis so that the points separated and she picked up speed. She heard Sam cheering behind her and took that as encouragement to keep going. The more she pointed her skis straight, the faster she slid down the mountain and the harder it was to keep her balance.

A ripple in the snow caused by too many skiers stopping in the same spot proved her undoing. Her right ski hit the furrow, and she jostled forward. Instinctively, she plunged her poles into the snow, but forward momentum had her. Instead of stopping her, the action propelled her down the mountain faster. Losing her head and control of her skis completely, she careened down the mountain with arms out for balance and poles flailing dangerously through the air.

"Fall!" she heard someone yell. "Just fall!"

That sounded like the dumbest advice ever. Falling while creeping down the mountain had hurt badly enough; she didn't want to imagine what falling at this speed would do. Ski instructors and more experienced children shouted the same advice as she flew past them. Furrows in the snow threatened to topple her, and sometimes one ski came clean off the snow as she struggled for balance. The more she tried to dig her poles into the snow to stop, the faster she went down the mountain.

At last, the end of the slope came into sight. The beginning of the chair lift was just ahead down one final decline. But suddenly it was gone, replaced with a white field and then sky, as Cassandra tumbled head over feet. She slid to a stop on her back halfway down the final leg of the slope. One ski had lodged into the snow and stuck up at an odd angle; both poles had gone flying and lay ten feet up the mountain.

"Cassandra!"

Janet's worried face appeared above her, and she began running through a full examination to make sure no bones were broken. The girl's stunned expression melted into euphoria. By the time Sam arrived, she wore a grin that showed all her teeth.

"Let's go again!"

The doctor made a strangled sound in the back of her throat and collapsed onto the snow.

When they left the ski resort six hours later, Cassandra could hardly walk her legs were so sore. Her calves ached from being squeezed by the boots all day, and her backside felt on fire. She crawled into the backseat and lay down with her coat under her head as a pillow.

"Maybe we should have gotten a professional ski instructor," Janet said to Sam in the front seat.

Cassandra had gotten better as the day went on, but her penchant for barreling down the mountain regardless of the risk had not abated in the least. She bore the bruises to prove it, and if the way she held her right arm was any indication, a sprained elbow too.

"Nah. We did a good job teaching her. At least she learned how to fall when she got too out of control. Besides, she had fun."

Janet cocked an eyebrow skeptically. "I'm not sure this is the kind of "fun" I want to encourage. I'd rather she had hobbies that didn't involve nearly breaking her neck and laughing about it."

"I could teach her how to make an atomic bomb," Sam said cheekily. Janet glowered. "Oh, come on, Janet. Since when did you become such a worry wart?"

The doctor's eyes flicked up to the rearview mirror and took in the child sleeping across the backseat.


	27. Ice Fishing

**DECEMBER 27**

"**Ice Fishing"**

The sling bothered Cassandra, but whenever Janet caught her fiddling with the straps, she got angry. The girl eventually gave in to being uncomfortable for the next week while her elbow sprain healed. She was only allowed to take off the sling to ice her injury with Janet's supervision. The bruises on her hips and ribs from falling down the ski slope hurt a lot worse.

Using only her left hand proved a challenge. About all she could manage was reading, but once Sam and Daniel found out, they had brought her a stack of history and science books. She was halfway through _Gods and Demi-Gods in Ancient Phoenicia_ when the familiar grumble of Jack's truck engine sent Homer into a frenzy.

Jack came into the house with his head and shoulders covered in a layer of snow. The book had so absorbed Cassandra that she hadn't noticed the skies open to dump another foot of snow on Colorado Springs. She jumped up and hugged him with her left arm.

"Sucks, doesn't it?"

She nodded sadly. "I don't know what holiday tradition I can do without my right arm."

"That's why I'm here." Jack extended his arms in a gesture of benevolence. "Ice fishing!"

In the other room, Janet started laughing. She rounded the dividing wall with an expression of amused disbelief. "Sir, ice fishing is not a holiday tradition. Even if it was and for some unfathomable reason Cassie wanted to do it, she couldn't with only one arm."

"Well, I say it is and she can."

The doctor cocked an eyebrow. "That's your counterargument, sir? Really?"

Jack looked down at Cassandra. "Can you make me a big sign that says COLONEL?" The girl waved around her right arm in its sling as if to say 'I would if I could …'. "We're going ice fishing. And that's final."

"Is it, sir? And here I thought I was her guardian."

Cassandra knew from experience that the stubborn streak in Janet, once brought out, was impossible to break through. She tugged on Jack's coat and shook her head in warning. When he looked down, she made the military hand signal for 'retreat.' For a minute, Jack looked about to laugh.

"Dr. Fraiser, can I _please_ take Cassie ice fishing?"

"Please, Janet? I have no idea what Jack is talking about, but I want to do it anyway."

Her foster mother couldn't resist after that and sent Cassandra out the door with Jack fifteen minutes later wrapped in warm clothes from head to foot. Jack allowed Homer to tag along, and girl and dog sat in the truck cab happily with heat blasting their faces for the next half hour.

Jack drove out of the city and turned onto a bumpy country lane that came to a dead end in front of a frozen over lake. A small wooden shack sat on the ice like a floating log cabin stranded during a sudden freeze. The colonel picked a careful path over the thick ice. Cassandra followed more slowly, and Homer came last with his paws sliding helpless over the ice. He whined pitifully when his owner gained too much lead, and she had to go back for him.

When she came into the makeshift hut, she peered curiously at the circular hole in the ice. Two folding chairs and an electric lantern sat around the hole. She gingerly lowered herself into the empty chair, very aware of all the bruises from the ski trip. The air inside was cold and the ice dusted with snow. The walls were capable of nothing but blocking the wind.

Jack strung a fishing line and held the pole out to Cassandra. She accepted it with her left hand, not sure what to do with it. She waited until he had his own line baited and dropped it into the black water and copied him.

"If you get a bite, just hold on to the pole. I'll reel it in for you."

Almost as soon as her one good hand was occupied, Cassandra felt an itch on her nose, and then her in her hair, and then her back. She did her best to ignore the impulse to drop the fishing pole. The longer they sat around the hole doing nothing but staring at rippling dark water, the colder the air seemed to grow. Cassandra huddled down into her thick coat until she looked like a poor imitation of a turtle.

"This is fun," she said. The thick scarf over her mouth muffled her words and the sarcastic intention.

"You bet it is. Can you imagine anything you'd rather be doing than ice fishing?"

The girl hesitated. "Reading a book? Sitting in a heated room? Going to the dentist?"

The pleasant smile faded from the colonel's lips. "Sarcasm. That's good. You should look into teaching Teal'c how to use sarcasm."

"Okay."

Jack did a double take, and Cassandra smiled mischievously. The scarf hid her mouth, but her eyes danced with mischievous mirth. She couldn't entirely stifle a giggle either. He made to retort, but a sharp jerked from the fishing line almost ripped the pole from Cassandra's hand. Jack took the pole and began to reel it in while Homer's ears went forward and he yipped at the thrashing water.

Cassandra screamed when a fish rose from the water with a hook in its lower lip. It thrashed on the line, and she stared in horror as its gills worked in vain. Jack seemed pleased by this terrible turn of events as he took the suffocating creature from the hook. The girl darted forward, seized the fish from Jack and plunged it back into the water.

For a comic moment, the colonel stared at his gloved hand that had held the fish a moment before. Then he rounded on Cassandra, who had leapt back from the edge of the fishing hole with a yelp. Her arms were soaked up to the elbow, her right arm out of the sling.

"God!" Jack cursed. "Cassie, what were you thinking?"

Kneeling down next to the girl, he pulled off her gloves and coat and pushed her sweater sleeves up to her elbows. Once her skin was dry, he wrapped her in his own coat and shoved his gloves on her hands.

"We could have killed that fish!" she wailed.

"That's the point. Catch the fish … and eat them."

Her eyes popped. "That's what fishing is? Murdering fish?"

"PETA will be thrilled to have its first alien member, but I was actually talking about sticking your arms in freezing water."

She was shivering constantly, and the nippy air inside the hut was seeping through Jack's sweatshirt as well. Deciding the fishing trip had been a bust, Jack packed up the tackle boxes and ushered the girl back to his truck. She rode home with her bare hands directly in front of the heater vents.

"What's PETA?"

"A cult."

"Oh." She went quiet for a few minutes. "What's a cult?"

The game of twenty questions – almost literally, Jack thought – continued until they arrived in Janet's driveway. The doctor greeted them on the front porch with a smug expression dangerously close to insubordination.

"How was ice fishing?" Her voice dripped with derision.

"It was horrible! We almost killed a fish, but I got it back into the water."

"And I see your arm is out of its sling," Janet observed, turning a sharp eye on Jack.

When the story was told, the doctor insisted on checking Cassandra's arms for frostbite, and then rounded on Jack. He had hastily taken a sheet of Cassandra's construction paper lying on the coffee table and scrawled COLONEL on it. The girl's peals of laughter diffused some of the tension, and she was sent off to her room to put on dry clothes.

"She's fine, Janet," Jack said. "Kids do these things. You do your best to keep an eye on them and make sure they're safe, but they do these things."

Janet wanted to argue, but she knew how close to home any remark would hit, so she wisely kept her comments to herself. Cassandra came skipping out of her bedroom a few moments later with an encyclopedia in her arms. It was the "C" volume she flipped through.

"Colonel?" the doctor guessed.

"No," the girl said, settling on the couch. "Jack told me I should read more about cults."

Janet glared at her superior officer, pointed at the door, and ordered, "_Out!_"


	28. Polar Bear Dive

**DECEMBER 28**

"**Polar Bear Dive"**

Two figures in Air Force blue winter coats skipped down the snowy pavement with linked arms. Cassandra and Tessa were thrilled to see each other after a full week being kept apart by winter break. They walked toward Cottonwood Creek Park chattering about their Christmas presents and the more exciting things that had happened during the last week.

Their plans had held up nicely with Janet and Mr. and Mrs. Hammond all working the twenty-eighth. Tessa had been vague about their plans for the day, but the adults assumed that was to keep it a surprise from Cassandra. Really, though, Tessa had the idea that no one would approve if she told them plainly what she had planned, but she was determined nonetheless.

"Oh, so you know about cold water during winter?" Tessa said, after the story about ice fishing. "That's good."

"Why?"

"Because …."

Tessa pointed to a small crowd gathered around Cottonwood Creek shivering in bathing suits and swimming trunks. The younger girl grinned mischievously and pulled two swimming suits out of her backpack.

" … we're going to a Polar Bear Dive!"

She explained the concept while the girls changed in the tiny bathroom stalls. Cassandra wasn't convinced this was a very good idea. Jack's reaction to her just getting her arms wet had convinced her touching water in cold weather was a very, very bad idea. But Tessa was excited and a lot of people were getting ready to jump into the frigid Cottonwood Creek.

"So, will you do it, Cass?"

"Yeah, I'll do it."

Tessa cheered and shoved her backpack full of their clothes into a locker. Together, they rushed outside to join the crowd. The freezing temperature and snowy ground brought them up short for a few moments. Even excitable Tessa looked ready to bolt back into the changing rooms and pull on her boots and sweater.

"Look! They're all doing it now!" Cassandra said.

The crowd of polar bear divers surged forward and plunged into the water. A single shared glance, and the girls knew they were in agreement. They sprinted across the frozen ground and threw themselves into the icy water.

Cassandra felt like she'd run headlong into a brick wall. Her lungs couldn't suck in any air, and her limbs refused to move. She hovered beneath the water for a minute terrified she would never surface again. Then her head broke water. She gasped for air and heard Tessa shrieking beside her.

They had been in the water for less than thirty seconds, but most of the other swimmers already retreated from the freezing creek. Cassandra wasted no time in scrambling out after them, but Tessa stayed in place for a few moments, absolutely determined get the full experience. The older girl shivered furiously on the shore, but waited patiently until she felt the wet bathing suit begin to freeze to her skin.

"Tess, come on! We have to get back inside."

It was all the encouragement the younger girl needed. They sprinted together back into the changing rooms. The warm air sent pins and needles pricking Cassandra's skin. Tessa darted toward the showers and slammed her palm down on the button for hot water. She shrieked, but not with glee like she had in the creek; the hot water scalded her cold skin. Gradually, the girls eased their way under the stream of water until they could stand under the hot flow without any pain. Only then did they start laughing so hard they had to cling to each other to keep from falling over.

Leaving the hot steam of the shower exposed them to another round of cool air, but not uncomfortably cold.

"Where are our towels?"

Tessa's face fell. "Oh. I'm sorry, Cass! I didn't think about towels."

"That's okay. We can dry off with my sweatshirt. Just make sure none of your clothes are wet when you put them on. Jack yelled at me for not taking off my gloves and coat as soon as I got them wet yesterday."

They took turns changing out of bathing suits and drying off with Cassandra's one extra piece of clothing. Tessa gingerly helped her best friend put her arm back into her sling. Dressed again, they dried their hair as best they could under the hand dryers and garbed up in their winter clothes for the walk home.

Homer woofed happily to see Cassandra again and curled up next to her on the floor while she and Tessa set up a game of Trivial Pursuit. They moved their pieces around the board for three hours and earned only one wedge a piece.

"This game would be fun," Tessa said, "if we could win it. Do you have Sorry!"

Mr. Hammond picked up his daughter on his way home from work. The girls parted with hugs and a goodbye until the new year. Cassandra sat down to finish reading _A Brief History of Time_, which Sam had lent her. She found herself yawning widely at four o'clock and completely unable to concentrate an hour later.

"A nap, Homey," she said. The dog leapt off the couch and trotted into the girl's bedroom where he curled up next to her on the bed.

When Janet arrived home at nine o'clock and came in to check on Cassandra, she found the girl huddled under a pile of blankets, shivering profusely and running a high fever. Janet took one look at the thermometer and forgot all the weariness from a day at the SGC. She gathered up Cassandra and rushed her out to the car.

"Where are we going?" Cassandra moaned, pulling the blankets tighter around herself. "I want to go back to bed."

"You'll be able to go to bed soon, Cassie."

The SGC infirmary staff found a private bed for Cassandra immediately, and following Janet's instructions, administered Acetaminophen to bring down her fever and began a full battery of blood work to diagnose her condition.

"Dr. Fraiser," General Hammond said, marching into the isolation room off the infirmary. "I was told you brought in Cassie, and she has symptoms of someone with pneumonia."

"Yes, sir, that is what it looks like."

"But you're not convinced?"

"No, sir. Just two months ago she had an alien explosive device dissolve inside her body. She still has naquadah in her blood. We have no idea what that could do to her."

"All right. Keep me updated on her progress."

The general departed, leaving Janet alone with Cassandra. While she waited for the blood work to come back, the doctor sat by her future daughter's bedside and smoothed back the hair from her burning forehead.

"Janet?"

She started and turned to see Daniel hovered in the doorway. She stepped outside to talk to him, not wanting to disturb Cassandra while she slept. She caught a reflection of herself in the observation windows. Worry gave her a haunted, crumpled look.

"How is she?"

"Thankfully, the Acetaminophen is working. The fever is coming down, but it's still dangerously high. I won't know how to treat it until I have the lab work back."

"Okay. So how are you?"

The doctor sighed and sagged against the wall. "Daniel, I …. I'm a doctor. How could I have missed symptoms this severe? If I had taken her to a regular hospital, they would have removed her from my care in a heartbeat. She's covered in bruises, has a sprained elbow, almost got frostbite yesterday, and now …. Did I make the right choice starting the adoption process?"

The archeologist placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and stooped to look into her eyes. He answered with such firm resolve it took Janet by surprise and startled away her crushing doubt.

"Yes."


	29. Family

**DECEMBER 29**

"**Family"**

The beep of many machines near her ear roused Cassandra from a fitful sleep. She felt sticky under her clothes, and her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. She blinked bleary eyes at the room, and started to see General Hammond and Jack watching her from a room encased in glass over the foot of her bed.

"It's all right, Cassie. You're in the SGC," General Hammond said through the intercom.

The blast door to her right opened, and Janet hurried into the room. Cassandra struggled to sit up; her arms felt like jelly. Her foster mother gently pushed her down onto the bed again and placed a cool hand on her forehead.

"Your fever has broken," she said, with a relieved smile. "I was so worried about you, Cass."

The girl tried to speak, but only a croak came out. Janet poured a glass of water from the bedside table and helped Cassandra take a long drink. When she had her fill, the girl pushed away the plastic cup and collapsed into her pillows.

"How are you feeling, sweetheart?"

"Tired," she mumbled.

"Then go back to sleep. I'll be here when you wake again."

Janet pressed a kiss to her forehead. Despite having just woken up, Cassandra fell back to sleep almost immediately. She rested more peacefully, but woke a short time later feeling still weak but more refreshed. This time Janet alone sat in the observation room. She came down to the hospital room as soon as she saw Cassandra was awake.

"Are you feeling better?" When the girl nodded, she walked around the bed reading the machine monitors and taking notes in a patient chart from the end of the bed. "Now. Do you want to tell me what happened? Don't leave anything out. General Hammond already had a tearful phone call from Tessa."

Cassandra started from the very beginning and didn't leave out any details – including standing on the banks soaked to the skin and walking home with damp hair. Janet's mouth settled into a firm line, but she stroked Cassandra's hair comfortingly throughout the story.

"We've talked before about how being cold can make you sick."

"I know," the girl mumbled. She looked away and fiddled with a loose thread in the quilted comforter. "Janet … what's wrong with me? Is it the thing that killed everyone on Hanka?"

The doctor gave a startled gasp and turned Cassandra's face to meet her eyes. "No, Cassie. No, it's not. What you have is called bacterial pneumonia. You're going to feel tired and crummy for awhile, but you will get better if you take your medicine and rest."

"Oh. I thought maybe the naquadah was gone, and I was getting sick from the thing everybody else had."

"No, Cassie. That's not going to happen. I'm doing to tests to make sure the naquadah in your blood doesn't increase or decrease, remember?"

"Yeah, I remember now. I just thought maybe it was my turn now to … to …."

Janet pulled the girl into a tight embrace. "No, Cass. I'm a doctor, and I'm not going to let anything happen to you."

Taking a fortifying breath, Janet brought up the subject she had waited to address for several days. The holiday busyness had passed, and General Hammond had started the paperwork. Now was the time to talk to Cassandra.

"There's something I want to talk to you about, Cassie. You know that the Air Force let you stay with me temporarily until they found a family with security clearance to adopt you."

Despite her fatigue, Cassandra sat up in alarm. "No! No, Janet, they can't take me away from you!"

"Ssh, Cassie. That's what I'm trying to tell you." The doctor kept her voice calm, but inside she felt a surge of emotion that brought prickling tears to the back of her eyes. "I've told the Air Force that I want to adopt you. That is, if you want to stay with me."

"Of course I do! I wouldn't live with anybody else."

Janet looked down and blinked rapidly to keep the tears from spilling over. For weeks she had feared Cassandra would prefer to live with Jack or Sam or Daniel and only put up with her because she got to see them regularly. When she looked up again, the girl had settled back into her pillows. Her eyelids drooped but she fought valiantly to stay awake.

"What does that mean? Adopt?"

"I wish I had an "A" encyclopedia here right now. But my explanation will have to do until you can go home. Adoption means that you will legally become my daughter. I won't be your guardian anymore; I'll be your … parent."

She wanted to say "mom" more than anything, but the fading smile on the girl's face told her it was too soon to use that title. Only two months ago, Cassandra had watched her mother die a horrific death. She wouldn't call anyone else "mom" for a long time, and Janet would patiently wait for that day.

"There are a lot of different kinds of parents on Earth. Some kids have stepparents, and some have adoptive parents. It doesn't mean I'm replacing your parents on Hanka, Cassie. They will always be part of you. And you can keep calling me Janet as long as you want to."

"And my name? Will it still be Senna?"

Janet hesitated. The girl had explained it meant "farmer" and was the most popular surname on Hanka. Being the last survivor of the agrarian culture, she had fervently embraced her family name on Earth.

"Your last name will be Fraiser, but we can hyphenate it if you want. Or Senna can be your middle name. Cassie, no one – especially not me – wants you to forget your history or your parents. I want you to be my daughter because I love you."

"I love you too, Janet," the girl whispered sleepily. "I'll be Cassandra Senna Fraiser, and you'll be my … parent."

Cassandra yawned widely, and Janet adjusted the covers and fluffed up the pillows. She stood beside the hospital bed rather than sit down and jostle the girl as she tried to sleep. As she stared down at the beautiful girl that would be her own very soon, a thought occurred to her. She shared it with Cassandra in a soft voice so as to not bring the girl too far out of her rest.

"Hey, we just did another holiday tradition."

Cassandra forced her eyes open. "We did?"

"Yes. Family is the most important part of any holiday."


	30. Hot Mulled Apple Cider

**DECEMBER 30**

"**Hot Mulled Apple Cider"**

Cassandra slept in short spurts throughout the day and night. Each time she woke, she felt slightly better. On the third day of her hospital stay, she started eating little bits from the trays of food the nurses brought in to her. She could also sit up in bed and have conversations with Sam, Jack, and Daniel in the observation room. Because she was still in the infectious stage, Janet had quarantined her and gave access only to doctors and nurses accustomed to being around sick patients.

Part of being quarantined meant she was allowed none of her possessions to occupy her time because they could carry the disease outside of the isolation room. Even her bedroom at home and been disinfected top to bottom. She spent a lot of time drawing on paper that she wouldn't be allowed to remove from the room, but at least it kept her from dying of boredom.

Cassandra's drawing these days were of herself and Janet. In some they held hands in front of their house, often joined by their friends and Homer. Those pictures covered every surface of the room and made the petite doctor grin happily whenever she came in to check on Cassandra.

The blast doors opened just after the clock hands announced the three o'clock hour and Cassandra finished another drawing, this one of her and Janet skiing together. Teal'c walked into the hospital room balancing a tray with two mugs on the palms of his hands. He didn't wear any of the protective face masks or robes like the nurses did.

"Teal'c!" she screeched. "You can't be in here, for crying out loud! I'll get you sick."

"In this you are incorrect, Cassandra. The larval Goa'uld I carry within protects me from diseases. Your illness will not harm me."

The girl's eyes moved down to take in the Jaffa's covered abdomen. "I'll take your word for it. What do you have there?"

Teal'c placed the tray on Cassandra's bedside table and took the seat beside her bed. He gazed at her sincerely, and though it was difficult to read his expressions at all times, she knew him well enough to see something troubled him.

"For thirty days now I have listened to my friends discuss their plans to teach you Earth traditions, and I have accompanied them sometimes to learn for myself. However, I have been unable to pass on any traditions to you myself. This has troubled me greatly, Cassandra. I wish as much as my friends for you to find a home on this world, perhaps even more so for I know what it is to be without."

The girl used the bed railing to pull herself into a sitting position. She patted the Jaffa's muscular arm with her small hand. "You shouldn't have been troubled, Teal'c. I understand. And I do have a home now, with Janet."

"And yet I still wished to share with you a tradition. I had considered teaching you a Jaffa custom, but I did not know if doing so would offend you. I have, at last, found an Earth tradition similar to a ceremony among the Jaffa."

Teal'c lifted a mug of the steaming liquid from the tray and passed it to Cassandra. The piping hot drink warmed her hands through the ceramic mug, and she breathed in the heady scent of apples and cinnamon.

"Hot mulled apple cider," Teal'c explained. "On Chulak we have a similar beverage, though it is not made with apples."

The girl lifted the mug to her lips and took a tentative sip. The hot liquid trickled down her throat and warmed her from within. The spicy sweetness filled her stomach pleasantly after the meager meals she had picked at for days.

"This is delicious, Teal'c!"

"We must thank the mess hall staff for that. I provided only the recipe."

They drank the mulled apple cider in companionable silence for a few moments. Cassandra could stomach only half of the liquid, and Teal'c politely accepted her explanation.

"I am sorry if I have tired you, Cassandra."

"No, Teal'c. I'm glad you came to see me. It's nice to talk face-to-face and not just through glass. And that," she pointed to the mugs on the tray, "is my new favorite drink."

Teal'c took his leave shortly after to let Cassandra rest more. She continued to doze until the clock read seven o'clock and Janet came in with the good news that the labs confirmed she was no longer infectious and could go home.

"You still have to rest," Janet said firmly.

"No problem," the girl said. "I couldn't play if I had to!"

On the ride up the two access elevators, Cassandra dozed on her feet, and she slept most of the car ride home. Janet all but carried her into the house and might have got all the way to her bedroom, but Homer turned frantic seeing his owner for the first time in three days. He whined, barked, woofed, and jumped around until Janet gave up and laid the girl down on the couch so the dog could lick her face and nuzzle her.

"Okay, Homer, enough," Janet said.

She grabbed the dog's collar and hauled him back from the couch so she could swoop in and help Cassandra stand up. The Akita whined and woofed as he darted between and around Janet's legs down the hallway. The instant the girl crawled under her covers, he leapt onto the bed and refused to move from her side even to let Janet smooth out the covers.

"At least Colonel O'Neill found you a loyal dog," she said.

Cassandra nodded sleepily and fell asleep with one arm thrown over Homer's shoulders. Janet came in every hour to check on the girl and found her affection growing slightly for the dog. He never moved a muscle, but his sad black eyes followed her as she moved around the room.

"Good dog," she whispered. He made a soft sound in his throat like a whimper like he always did when Cassandra praised him. "I guess you're a package deal."

The girl woke several hours later after Janet had gone to bed. Too weak to pad around the house, but not tired enough to go back to sleep, she sat up in bed and turned her new telescope over in her hands.

"What do you say, Homey? Want to look at space?"

She set up the telescope on its stand at the end of her bed and aimed it out the window. Jack had given her a brief lesson, so she knew how to adjust the lenses. It was a low-powered telescope meant for beginning stargazers, but the images in the glass amazed her nonetheless.

"Jupiter's moons," she breathed. Looking back into the telescope, she saw that the small white dots had rotated around the planet and tried to remember what Sam had taught her about the speed of light. "And Hanka is somewhere far beyond that."

The girl patted her dog's head as she climbed back under the covers.

"But this is my home now too. Let's go to sleep, Homey."


	31. Resolutions

**DECEMBER 31**

"**Resolutions"**

The flurry of activity in the living room roused Cassandra from one of her many short naps. Homer had already gone to investigate, leaving his owner alone for the first time since Janet brought her home. The digital clock beside her bed read 9:42, and from the blackness out the window, she determined she had slept the day away again. The girl kicked off her covers and trotted out to the living room.

Sam and Daniel carried bowls of caramel popcorn, pretzels, and a vegetable tray into the living room where they joined the two liters of soda and pizza boxes on the coffee table. Jack knelt in front of the television adjusting the channels manually while Teal'c brought in chairs from the dining room table. Janet watched all this with mild disapproval.

"Cassie needs to rest," she said, in a voice that sounded like she was getting tired of repeating herself. "If she wakes up before midnight, she can join us. But I will not wake her up to watch the ball drop and sing _Auld Lang Syne_."

"Maybe just a few minutes before midnight?" Daniel asked. "New Year's Eve is …." The archeologist trailed off at the look of growing fury on Janet's face. "If she wakes up it is."

Cassandra emerged into the living room still in her flannel pajamas with mussed hair. Janet fussed over her for several minutes before determining there was nothing more wrong with the girl than fatigue. Cassandra climbed up on the couch beside Daniel.

"You were saying something about New Year's Eve?"

"Yes, New Year's Eve. We have a lot of traditions connected to the last day of the year. We look back on the previous year and think about our favorite moments and what we would change. Then we make resolutions for the new year – something we want to change about ourselves or our lives."

"Which last about four and a half days," Jack said, standing up.

He had found the right channel, and Cassandra watched with interest as the camera panned over a large crowd in a place she could identify as New York City. The announcer was an elderly man trying to look middle aged.

"More important than resolutions," the colonel said, "is _Dick's Clarks New Year's Rockin' Eve_. I remember New Year's Eves without it, and they were boring."

Sam took a seat on the couch beside Cassandra and handed her a plate of food. She didn't feel like eating much. She ignored the pizza and potato chips, but nibbled on the carrot and celery sticks and drank an entire glass of Sprite in one breath.

"Actually, the most important tradition is watching the ball drop and counting down the seconds to the New Year," Sam said.

"I'm partial to singing _Auld Lang Syne_ myself," Janet said, brining Cassandra another glass of Sprite. "But I don't want any comments made about my singing voice."

The girl pressed herself into the couch cushions and listened to the adults debate the merits of their favorite traditions. It was a pointless argument, clearly, since they planned on doing them all with Cassandra, but the friendly banter continued for a quarter hour nonetheless.

"What kind of resolutions do we have to make?" the girl asked, during the first break in conversation. Daniel looked supremely pleased with himself.

"I'm making the resolution to learn two new Goa'uld dialects next year," the archeologist said.

"That's not a resolution," Jack countered. "You were going to do that anyway. Resolutions are supposed to be something you have difficulty doing. For example, my resolution is to try and find more time to go fishing."

"Your resolution sounds the same as Daniel Jackson's," Teal'c observed. "Are you not always attempting to find more time to do this thing you call "fishing"?"

"Then what's your resolution, Teal'c?" Jack asked, while barely stifled snickers passed around the room.

"I resolve to overthrow the Goa'uld and free my Jaffa brothers from the bonds of slavery."

"Laudable," the colonel said, "but also not a real resolution since you've been doing that for months anyway. Carter? Doc? Either of you have a better example for Cassie?"

"You already know my resolution," Janet said, smiling at the girl she already considered her daughter.

"That's a good one," Jack said, pointing at the sky for emphasis.

The girl thought hard for a moment. So much had changed in the past two months. She didn't know what else she could wish to change. She already planned on reading all the books she could find and learning every new thing about Earth she possibly could. While she pondered her resolution, Dick Clark came back on the television and introduced several bands who played the kind of music she liked. The adults did not press her to come up with a resolution immediately, for which she was grateful.

She must have dozed off sometime between ten and midnight because a surreptitious nudge from Daniel woke her up when the countdown clock in the corner of the television read 11:50. Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she yawned widely and shifted into a more comfortable position.

As she had slept, she had dreamt of a future Christmas when she knew all the Earth holiday traditions and celebrated them joyfully remembering the year when Janet, Sam, Daniel, Jack, Teal'c, Tessa, and General Hammond had taught her one a day. The memory of those days filled her with the warm glow of love and acceptance.

"I have a resolution," she announced at 11:58. "I don't think it's a real one because I might not be able to do it next year, but it's my resolution anyway. My resolution is to teach someone else all the holiday traditions you've taught me so that they can feel as loved as I do."

A ripple of emotion spread around the room. Daniel smiled approvingly and gave Cassandra's shoulder a hug. Jack averted his eyes quickly, and Teal'c's stoic expression flickered for moment into something more tender. Janet and Sam gave in to their tears almost immediately and enveloped the girl with hugs and kisses all over her face. Wanting in on the affection, Homer forced his way onto the couch and licked any face his tongue could reach.

On the television Dick Clark and the crowd in Times Square began counting down the last ten seconds until 1997 turned into 1998. The small group in Janet's living room counted in sync with the crowd and watched the ball lowering. At midnight, the adults raised their glasses, and Cassandra hurried to follow their example.

"_Happy New Year!_"

A song began playing on the television, and Janet led her friends in the New Year's tradition she loved so much.

"Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
>And never brought to mind?<br>Should auld acquaintance be forgot,  
>And auld lang syne?"<p>

Cassandra did not know the words to this song, so she sat back on the couch looking up at the five people who had made her feel welcomed on an alien world after the terrible tragedy she had witnessed and survived in the only home she had ever known. As much as she felt loved by them, she loved them back twice as much.

Homer howled along with the song and inspired Cassandra to attempt to mumble the few words she had picked out of the lyrics.

"We'll tak a cup of kindness yet,  
>For auld lang syne!"<p> 


	32. Epilogue: 2002

**DECEMBER 1**

"**2002"**

Cassandra Fraiser hovered outside the laboratory staring at the open space where a blast door might have been. She shifted her weight from left to right foot and tapped pink fingernails on the metallic covering of the thermos clasped between her hands. Three steps and she would be in the room that had once served as Daniel Jackson's lab.

In her mind, she pictured an overflowing bookshelf, alien artifacts, and the genuine smile of the man himself. Tears misted Cassie's eyes, and she turned on her heel to march away from the usurped laboratory. She did not leave her station, however. What Daniel had taught her of forgiveness and goodness could not so easily be erased.

"For crying out loud, Cassie," she muttered.

This had been Daniel's idea all those years ago, and she had promised him she would pay forward the incredible gift of love and acceptance. More lessons shared throughout the years echoed in her head: bravery, service, empathy, sacrifice. Turning again, she faced the open door with greater resolve.

Her tennis shoes made little noise on the concrete floor, and Cassie had a moment's view of the renovated laboratory uninterrupted. Gone were the Goa'uld artifacts and myriad linguistic books. A television broadcasting the Weather Channel and a fish tank replaced them. Cassie felt like fleeing in abject horror and grief, but the new owner of the laboratory finally spotted her. He hastily swallowed a bite of apple.

"Hello." When she said nothing in reply, he rose from his chair at the work table. "Can I help you with something?"

"My name is Cassie Fraiser," she began, in a voice more quiet than usual. "I'm Janet's daughter."

Recognition dawned on his youthful face, and he extended his hand in standard Earth fashion. The familiar gesture startled her, and she hesitated before accepting the hand of the man Daniel had died to save.

"Jonas Quinn. It's a pleasure to finally meet you. Dr. Fraiser talks about you all the time."

"So everyone tells me."

Her eyes strayed around the room again. The utter lack of Daniel disconcerted her, and she shifted around nervously. She must have remained silent too long. Jonas made a valiant attempt at small talk that Cassie would have appreciated more had this not been her first time in the room since Daniel's death … or ascension, if that was different than dying.

"Is it minus three with light snow showers?" Cassie started, drawn back to the conversation in such an abrupt way that she couldn't process the question. Jonas motioned to the Weather Channel. "It's supposed to be minus three with light snow showers."

"Oh. Umm, no. There's no snow falling." Awkward silence descended on the room, and this time Cassie knew the responsibility to break it lay on her shoulders. She forced a smile and held up the thermos. "I have something for you. I hear you like trying new foods."

Jonas appeared surprised, though Cassie could only tell from the slight arching of his brows. "Thank you. That's very kind of you. Can I ask what it is?"

Now Cassie did smile genuinely as she remembered December 1, 1997 when she had concocted this beverage with Sam, Daniel, and Janet. "It's called a Snow Cream."

Jonas accepted the thermos and considered it for a minute. "Cassie … I don't mean to sound churlish, but …. Why did you bring me this?"

The young woman looked down at the floor, trying to bring her emotions under control. Just thinking of Daniel and the void in her life without him still sent her into mourning. She cleared her throat and looked up again.

"You know I'm an alien too?"

"Dr. Fraiser mentioned something about it."

"December is really important on Earth. My first year here, Janet and all of SG-1 showed me why. At the time, I thought it was to teach me about snow creams and Christmas trees and ice skating. But it wasn't. It was about helping me find my place in this world. I made a promise that year to do for someone else what they did for me. I've never had that chance before now."

Jonas averted his eyes for a moment. "I appreciate that, Cassie. Thank you."

"If it's okay with you, Jonas, I'll come back tomorrow with holiday decorations for the – for your lab. They're nothing as ostentatious as Jack taught me to use, but it would be something festive for the season."

"And humans on Earth do this? Decorate for December?"

"For Christmas, yes. They decorate a lot. And if you find that odd, just wait until we get to mistletoe." She laughed at the memory of Jack and Sam's horrified expressions at finding themselves standing beneath the ugly green plant. The laugh broke the tension, at least on Cassie's end. "You should eat that soon or the snow will melt."

"Join me?" Jonas asked. "I'd like to hear more about why December is important on Earth."

She took the second chair at Jonas's work table and accepted a mug of the slightly slushy Snow Cream. Cassie began with an explanation of Christmas and New Year's Eve, but she also made sure to mention that PETA was a cult and Santa Claus was an Asgard.

**The End**

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong> Thank you for reading _I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day_. I have wanted to write a Christmas story for years, and it has been my great pleasure to share this one with you each day in December. Your reviews, alerts, and favorites have meant the world to me. You made this December a little brighter for me. I hope you had a very happy holiday season, and I send you well wishes into the new year. Until next time.


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